


Not a Song

by holograms



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Smut, F/M, Fix-It, Getting Back Together, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, POV Alternating, Post-Episode: s08e05 The Bells, past emotional abuse, sex as coping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-03-08 07:07:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18889645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holograms/pseuds/holograms
Summary: They always come back to each other.He may be stubborn, but so is she.





	1. Brienne I

**Author's Note:**

> Oh no, it’s another post 8x05 fix-it fic! I have some ideas where this is going to go, but I’m also seeing where it goes. I won’t stop having feelings about it. And now I’m starting to post this while there are only 30 minutes before the finale airs. J/B are my favorite forever, and I want to explore what canon has done to them, but in a way I feel makes sense.

King’s Landing is still smoldering when Brienne arrives with the Starks two days after the end. They left the safety of Winterfell, like everyone else. Bran said they _must_ , and then they stayed nearby the city, to wait. 

“For what, my Lord?” Brienne had asked, and Bran had replied, “You’ll see,” in that apathetic tone that reveals nothing.

He didn’t need to tell them — they saw in the smoke in the sky, and then the flurry of ravens came, _the bells rang and Cersei surrendered but Daenerys is burning the city, she’s gone mad._

Brienne knew the city would be destroyed. She told Jaime—

She hardens her resolve. She won’t think of him.

She has seen death — fought the living dead — but all of that had been preparation for this. Nothing was untouched in Daenerys’ attack. If buildings did not fall, they are scorched with dragon fire. Charred bodies line the streets, died where they couldn’t escape. Embers still burn. She wonders if they will always burn.

Podrick walks ahead of her.

The Stranger, beside her.

She wraps her cloak tighter around herself.

They’ve been searching for survivors all morning. There haven’t been many. Most of the living Brienne finds she ends up putting out of their misery. They beg of for it. Northmen, Lannister soldiers, Dothraki, civilians rich and poor, children who shouldn’t know what misery is. Death is the same for everyone, in the end.

Something touches her foot. An Unsullied holds onto her boot, blood spluttering from his mouth, and his body half burned. He says something in Valyrian which she doesn’t understand but it feels like _please_ , so she plunges Oathkeeper through him. There’s a foul smell, like the one that hangs over the entire city: charred, and rot.

Pod gags.

“Sorry, Ser,” he says when Brienne looks to him. He’s coated in so much ash and dust, he looks like a ghost. She fights the urge to wipe his face clean.

“No need to apologize.” Brienne would be disgusted with the carnage too, if she hadn’t gone away inside.

She wonders if that’s where Jaime was when he died.

White flakes fall on her shoulders and she brushes it off, thinking how it’s too warm for snow, but then she realizes it’s ash. From buildings, from bodies.

She wonders if any of it is Jaime’s.

Tyrion told her that Jaime was dead. He rambled on about some plan — that Jaime was going to ring the bells for surrender and escape with Cersei in a boat that Tyrion arranged to be there for them, but the bells rang and then there was chaos and when it ended the first thing he did was see if the boat was gone but it was still there, empty.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Brienne had said. She sat on an overturned barrel, so she wouldn’t lumber over him, and because she felt like her legs were going to buckle under her. She was so tired.

“I’m sorry for _your_ loss,” Tyrion said, and when Brienne tried to argue, he shook his head. “What my brother felt for you is— _was_ real. He lo—“

“It doesn’t matter now,” Brienne said, standing up so fast she got dizzy and all she could think of was Jaime’s whispered confession one night after Brienne woke him up because he was whimpering, _I still dream of being burned alive by Wildfire_ , and then she quickly excused herself from Tyrion, gripping Oathkeeper’s hilt so hard her hand hurt and she walked and walked and walked until she was far away from everyone and she fell to her knees and wept so hard she got sick.

She loved him. She loved him more than she has, or will, ever love anyone.

There’s nothing more hateful than failing to protect the one you love.

But what if what kills them is themselves? How could she have protected him from that hatred that was bred inside him? That darkness that made him _go_ _away_ _inside?_

That’s why Brienne does that — goes away inside — because she can’t think of Jaime and go on. She puts her grief aside. It will be waiting for her later. Her heart is not more important than everyone else’s suffering. She is a knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

Even if there isn’t much of it left to serve.

Tyrion gave her Widow’s Wail. “It was confiscated when he was captured,” he said. “He left it behind when he came to King’s Landing.”

Brienne turned it over in her hands. It was the same weight as Oathkeeper and her hands buzzed under the familiar steel, but it didn’t feel right.

“He’d want you to have it,” Tyrion said, and she accepted, because she didn’t want it to go to anyone else. She wore both swords for a while — Oathkeeper on her left, his on her right — but she was too aware of its weight, and she gave Widow’s Wail to Pod.

“I cannot take—“ he began, but Brienne shook her head.

“Only for now,” she said. “It’s for you to borrow. I want you well-armed in the city.”

And because the memory of Jaime is too heavy to carry on her own.

Pod didn’t argue; he just nodded and graciously thanked her and wore it on his side. He was kind enough to ignore her silence.

She doesn’t talk about Jaime. She can’t, or lest be angry and she doesn’t want to be angry when she thinks about Jaime — but she’s thinking about Jaime anyway, she cannot stop it. The Jaime she remembers jumped into a bear pit for her. The Jaime she knew was honorable when it mattered most. The Jaime who came North smiled at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. The true Jaime — a _good_ man — knighted her and made her feel loved. Her Jaime loved her.

Her Jaime left her.

She knows he loved her, despite what he did. She knows he was a tortured soul. She prays that he has found peace, and the Warrior made him whole and strong again. She will always defend Jaime, and his honor. She swears that he didn’t betray them, but people call her biased. She knows everyone knows what she and Jaime were to each other, and she knows what they call her behind her back, _Kingslayer’s_ _whore_ —

“Ser?”

Pod’s voice brings her back to the present moment. She hasn’t noticed they walked to where the Red Keep used to stand.

He’s worried about her.

“I’m alright.” She’s holding onto Oathkeeper. She never realized she does it as often as she does, until Tyrion said it, _you touch it when you talk about him._

She lets her hand fall from the hilt.

“Continue the search,” she commands. Not that there is much to see. The Red Keep collapsed entirely; towers fell over onto the surrounding buildings, and the center is nought but a pile of bricks.

Pod kneels on the ground and picks something up. A helmet. Ash spills out of it. He coughs.

“This is hopeless,” he says, dropping the helmet to the ground, and while Brienne wants to encourage the boy, she is inclined to agree with him.

She squeezes his shoulder. “Nothing is hopeless, Podrick.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, Ser.” He glances over at the tower where Daenerys has locked herself inside the throne room.

He’s terrified.

Brienne thinks this must be what Jaime felt like when he knew he had to kill the Mad King.

Her hand tightens on Oathkeeper.

“Let’s finish for the day,” Brienne says. “We’ll clean ourselves up, and then find Lady Sansa.” Although Arya stays by Sansa’s side, Brienne still worries for her safety. There is no fondness between Daenerys and Sansa, and Brienne knows that the Starks will never be safe with the Dragon Queen.

“Come on,” Brienne says, patting Pod on the back. He reluctantly turns to follow her but he gasps and he runs off in the other direction, stumbling through the debris.

“M’lady!” He gets on his knees and moves a few rocks aside and then she sees it, too: gold, glinting in the sun.

And then she’s running and then falls to her knees next to Pod and she digs with him, unburying what lies beneath — her heartbeat thuds in her ears and her vision is blurry and it’s difficult to breathe with the dust and the panic clawing at her chest but she can’t, she can’t lose him when he’s this close—

Pod helps her drag Jaime’s limp form from the rubble. Another body is tangled with his, but Brienne knows it’s Cersei’s before Pod moves it away, and she knows it even though death was not kind and leftthe former queen’s head split open and her body burned.

They died together, just like Jaime wanted.

Brienne sits next to Jaime. Pod joins her, wordlessly.

She realizes that she had not truly thought him dead, because she was holding on to some stupid hope that he could’ve escaped this fate, and even now with the proof before her, she doesn’t want to believe it—

She chokes on a sob.

“He’s gone.”

“Yes, m’lady.”

He doesn’t look dead. His face was mostly untouched, beside from a cut on his cheek. She’s glad for that, selfishly, in that he still looks like himself. She examines the rest of his body; his leg is turned out awkwardly, burns cover his shoulder and chest, and she finds two stab wounds, which tell a story that he did not go easily. 

“I’m sorry, Ser, m’lady,” Pod says, and voice wavers before adding, “Brienne. I’m so sorry.”

Brienne bites her lip. She swore she wouldn’t cry over Jaime anymore. Not when his actions hurt her more than any physical pain could. She should hate him.

She runs her hand over Jaime’s forehead. His eyes are closed, his mouth slightly parted. He looks like he did when he slept. She thinks of him, sleeping, and drooling on her pillow.

“ _Gross,” Brienne said, wiping away one of Jaime’s wet, slobbery morning kisses, but he just curled closer to her under the fur blankets._

_“Good morning, my beauty,” Jaime said and she started to say, “I’m not—” but he kissed her again, and again, until she believed it._

Brienne removes her gloves. She wants to touch him, one last time. He’s pale, but still warm to the touch. She traces the line between his brow. He must have died hurting, and scared.

Her Jaime.

Pod bows his head, as though allowing them privacy, and she knows she shouldn’t but she doesn’t care — she leans down and kisses Jaime’s dirty forehead and she cradles his head in her lap, her hand resting against his neck and—

There’s a flutter at her finger tips.

She thinks she imagines it at first but she presses harder, and it’s there, weak but oh gods, it’s there, a sign of life.

“Pod, I think he’s—“ She motions for him to feel and Pod’s eyes go wide and he’s on his feet in an instant.

“I’ll get his legs,” he says, but Brienne slips her arms under Jaime, one under his legs and one at his back, and picks him up from the ruin, holding him like he’s the most important thing in the world.

Her strength surprises her. She almost laughs, thinking of what Jaime would say if he were conscious.

“ _Should the damsel give the brave knight a kiss?”_  he’d ask and Brienne would threaten to drop his ass on the ground and he’d laugh and she’d smile, damn him.

Jaime’s head rests on her shoulder. His gold hand hangs down, lifeless. Pod carefully places it so it’s tucked against against her body. She thinks Jaime says something so she leans her hear towards him, asks, “What?” but it is only her imagination.

“We should go, Ser,” Pod says.

Brienne nods, and takes a step. She thinks of before, when he was half-dead in her arms in the Harrenhal baths. He was so vulnerable, looked like half a god, and she thinks she was half in love with him already.

She looks down at him, at his stupid face she’s grown to adore. He might have been born with a death wish and while he is beyond stubborn—

—so is she.


	2. Jaime I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first thing Jaime knows: Cersei is dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEAH so that finale happened but whatever, I’m still on team Jaime Is Alive. Also the Red Keep didn’t totally collapse as how I wrote it but WHATEVER I don’t care, I’m deciding what happens now.
> 
> Warning for some suicidal ideation, I guess.

The first thing Jaime knows: Cersei is dead.

The second: pain.

He feels like he is on _fire_ , his skin burns and he thinks of it melting off his bones and his bones turning to ash, and Cersei is _dead_ — he feels in his soul that they are separated, like half of him is gone — she’s dead, and so is their unborn child—

He’s being carried. The gentle jostling of being in someone’s arms reminds him of a boat on an open sea.

He doesn’t remember the last time he was carried. Certainly not by his father. His father was incapable of affection. A maid, perhaps, when he was too ill to walk on his own? No — it was his mother, when her belly was starting to round out with Tyrion, but she carried him on her hip and Cersei on the other.

 _His_ _sister_. He left her behind, she’s alone—

The person holding him breaks into a jog. They’re huffing in exertion and they stumble but their hold on Jaime is tight but it’s gentle and kind and...

He fights to open his eyes. He looks up and sees yellow hair and feels so much love. _Mother?_ he thinks but no, she died not long after that final time he was carried.

 _Maybe it is the Warrior, taking me on the journey of death._ He wonders if he and Cersei will end up in the same place. The spiritual Mother must’ve claimed her, surely. For all her faults, Cersei was a good mother.

His savior looks down at him, says, “Stay with me,” and he sees endless blue and then nothing at all.

 

.

 

The next time, he wakes to screams. They seem to be all around him, echoing. His throat hurts. Some of them must be his own. He can’t open his eyes, it hurts too much, but he’s aware of someone removing his clothes. That hurts too. It feels as though some melted to his skin, and it’s peeling away.

“Take his hand,” says a voice, commanding, and he screams then, too — he won’t let them take his sword hand, but he’s too weak and he can’t fight when someone touches his right arm and—

Then he remembers he’s already lost his hand, years ago.

He lays still as someone unlatches his fake golden hand. That makes him feel more naked than anything else, even though he’s down to his smallclothes.

“Ser?” asks another voice, tentatively. “What if someone recognizes him?”

“There are currently bigger concerns than the Kingslayer.”

He knows the voice, then. Brienne, and _Kingslayer_ on her tongue cuts worse than a dagger.

_Jaime. My name is—_

 

_._

 

_He dreams of a memory, where he was tangled in furs with Brienne—_

_Neither of them knew what to say after they fucked the first time. He laid on top of her, catching his breath as he softened inside her. His face was still buried against her neck, where he hid away because he couldn’t look at her, after. She was patient, rubbing his back as he came down from his orgasm. He pulled out, and if he were a younger man he would have hardened again at the sound she made when his cock dragged out of her. He flipped onto his back, them lying shoulder to shoulder, and he thought about everything and nothing._

_“I’ll leave in a moment,” he said._

_The sheets rustled as she turned on her side to look at him._

_“We just did..._ that _and you think I’m going to kick you out of my bed?” she asked._

_He didn’t know how to say that he usually was kicked out of his sister-lover’s bed. But she must know._

_Guilt clenched in his chest. Guilt for laying with someone other than Cersei, guilt for thinking of her while he should be only thinking of Brienne, guilt that he didn’t think of her at all when he was inside Brienne—_

_Brienne laid her head on his chest, and yawned, sleepy and sated._

_“It wasn’t bad,” she said, and Jaime scoffed and she smacked his chest. “I meant — I thought it would hurt, but it felt...really nice.”_

_It was cute, how she was trying to downplay her enjoyment._

_“It didn’t hurt because I used my fingers on you first,” he said. “Got your cunt dripping wet—“_

“Jaime!” _she said, and she blushed and hid her face on his shoulder._

_He smiled. “That’s another first for you.”_

_She looked at him, dumbly. “What?”_

_“Calling me only by my name,” he said. “It’s always been Kingslayer or my Lord or Ser Jaime, but you’ve never called me only_ Jaime _before.”_

_“I haven’t?” she asked, even though he knew she knew he was right — they both were aware of that line between them, and how they paced alongside it, never crossing._

_Until they did._

_“No. But now it seems you’re familiar with it,” he said. She had whispered his name when they fell on her bed together, gasped it aloud when he entered her, and begged_ please Jaime please _as she urged him on, more._

 _“Well,_ Jaime, _” she said, “I really liked having sex with you, and I’d like to do it again if you’re...up for it.”_

_“Did my Lady just make a filthy joke?” he asked, and she smiled and kissed him._

 

_._

 

“We should remove it.”

 _No_ , Jaime tries to say, but he’s lost, somewhere else. Pain still holds him, and he’s hot, burning—

“Absolutely not,” she says for him.

Brienne.

His warrior.

“Ser,” the other voice says again — he thinks it’s that rotund Tarly who plays as Maester. “His leg was crushed. The bones have been set but the infection could take him. If you want him to live—“

“He’s survived worse,” Brienne says, blunt. “He’ll be fine.”

Jaime isn’t sure about that. What kept him alive when he lost his hand was the promise of returning to Cersei, but she’s dead.

Her death feels like part of him has been cut away. He thinks of the rotten flesh that had to be cut away from his arm. That’s what it feels like every time he remembers she’s dead. More and more of him gone.

“It might kill him,” Tarly says.

“It’ll kill him if he wakes up missing a leg.”

He wants to laugh. Doesn’t she know he’s already dead?

“Jaime?” Brienne says, quiet, and he realized he must have laughed aloud. She puts her hand to his forehead. “Jaime, please say something.”

“No,” he says, and then slips back into that darkness.

 

. 

 

_He’s on fire._

_Mad King Aerys turned into a dragon when Jaime slit his throat, and he burned him, his white cloak caught aflame first then the rest of him—_

“Stop fucking _moving.”_

 _I’m dying and you’re being mean to me,_ Jaime wants to say, but Brienne has a right to be mean — she should hate him. She should let this fever take him and he could finally die.

He feels the fever in his blood. It’s poison, like what killed his daughter.

He should die.

But Brienne, the stubborn wench, won’t let him. She’s determined to make him suffer. She makes Pod pry open his mouth and she forces him to drink something vile tasting and she makes him swallow when he tries to spit it out.

“It’s for your own good.” She pets his hair. “Trust me.”

 _I always have,_ Jaime thinks, and then he sleeps.

 

.

 

Brienne prays to the gods for him. She asks the Father to protect him, the Mother for mercy, the Warrior to make him strong, the Smith to fix his body, the Crone for guidance to being him back, and she thanks the Stranger for letting him live. She even prays to the Maiden to keep safe, even though he is not innocent nor a young woman.

Time passes. Jaime isn’t sure how long. Minutes. Days. Months. At some point she speaks directly to him instead.

“I’m not mad at you,” Brienne whispers. He feels her warm breath at his ear. She must be sitting close to him. “I understand why you had to leave. You were sacrificing yourself, like you’ve done time and time again. I know you were trying to protect me. You’re the only person who’s ever tried to protect me and I...” Her voice falters. “You’re so damn foolish but you’re a _good_ man, I don’t care what you believe.”

 _You’re wrong,_ he thinks. _But you almost make me believe it._

 

_. _

 

_Cersei visits him. She’s beautiful as always; a perfect reflection of him—_

_No. He’s the reflection of her._

_He thinks she will reject him, so he turns away from her but she pulls him into an embrace and kisses him until it feels right again._

_“I couldn’t find you.”_

_“It doesn’t matter,” Cersei says. “We’re together now.”_

_“Yes.” What else is there to say? This is always how it was going to be._

_“Our child,” Cersei says, presenting Jaime with a blanket, and she unwraps it and ash spills out—_

The earth moves under him but then he realizes he’s shaking, so hard his bones rattle, and he’s coughing, choking on ash, it’s in his throat, in his lungs—

“Jaime, look at me.”

He can’t, because Brienne is _truth_ and the truth hurts more than his infected blood or his damaged body. He has to relive that Cersei is dead and he is not, that the city he called home for so many years is destroyed, and that for some reason Brienne wants to keep him alive. He wants to die and she won’t let him. She is stronger than him in body, and in spirit.

He hates whatever he did to make her believe in him.

She takes his face between her hands. “Jaime. Please.”

His eyes find hers. They’re tired and dark circles are under them, and then he examines the rest of her face — there’s soot smeared on her nose and a cut on her chin and it looks like she’s aged five years since he’s seen her last, but her eyes are as clear as ever. 

“There you are,” she says, soft. She rubs his cheek with her thumb. “My Jaime.”

She presses her forehead to his, and he matches her calm, steady breaths. She is his anchor on a restless sea.

 

.

 

He must be hallucinating again, because he sees Catelyn Stark standing over him. Another ghost to haunt him.

“How is he?” she asks, and then he realizes it’s not Catelyn, but her daughter — they have the same Tully red hair, and stern expression.

“The fever is gone, but he’s not well.”

Jaime smiles. His honorable knight doesn’t lie. He loves her for that.

“Sometimes he’s here,” Brienne says. “Sometimes he isn’t.”

He supposes this is one of the times he isn’t _here_. He sees them, hears them, but he stays _away_.

Safe.

“They’re looking for him,” Sansa says. “They know Tyrion let him escape. They think Tyrion knows where he is.”

“He doesn’t.”

“I know. Daenerys plans to execute him soon.”

 _Tyrion_. His little brother needs him, but he can’t save him, like he couldn’t save Cersei, and he couldn’t save himself.

“Lord Tyrion knew the risks involved,” Brienne says.

“Didn’t Ser Jaime know the risks as well?”

Silence.

“He rang the bells for surrender,” Brienne says, finally. “He tried to save the city from destruction.”

_Tried. I guess I could save the city from burning only once in a lifetime._

“It doesn’t matter. She wants to rid the world of all Lannisters. Her people will come for him, and they will kill him.”

Brienne puts a hand on Oathkeeper. “I won’t let them.”

Jaime hears Sansa’s smirk.

“Of course not,” she says, and then Jaime is somewhere else, again.

 

.

 

 

_If it weren’t for Brienne, Jaime would have died when they were captured by the Brave Companions. If it weren’t for her stupid oath and the fact she felt obligated because he lost his hand defending her, she would have let him die—_

_No, she wouldn’t. She was a good person._

_Someone who didn’t care wouldn’t do the things she did — not cringe when his putrid stump brushed against her, or look away when he cried on her shoulder because they were tied together and he couldn’t keep the tears away._

_She dragged him away from their captors, their laughter a din in the background. She took him to a river. He hoped she would drown him in it._

_Instead, she cupped water in her hands and put it to his mouth._

_“Drink,” she said, and he was so delirious with pain and humiliation that he lost all sense of opposition, and he drank. Water ran down his chin and she gathered more, and he put his only hand on her wrist and closed his eyes as she let him drink from her hands like a cat licking up cream._

_“That’s enough,” their captors yelled._

_She frowned, but complied. A darkness passed over her face, and he imagined she was plotting how to murder each one of them in a unique way._

_Jaime slumped against her as she began to strip off his breeches. “Sorry,” she said, but he didn’t know what she was apologizing for. She hadn’t hurt him._

_She waded into the river with him. He thinks of how this wasn’t what Catelyn Stark had in mind when she sent them off together, but he was glad he was with Brienne._

_If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t be so kind when when she cleaned the filth from him, blood and dirt and shit._

_“You are very stupid,” Brienne said, and Jaime agreed with her, even though he wouldn’t admit it, but she continued with, “but there is no doubt you are brave,” and that he didn’t agree with. He lost his fight, his bravery,_ himself _along with his sword hand._

_“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Kingslayer,” she whispered, where only he could hear, “but I need you.”_

_He laughed as a response. Didn’t she know he wasn’t good for anything, anymore?_

And now, life repeats itself — she’s cleaning him, and she’s pleading with him, _please stay, I need_ _you_.

He’s more _here,_ at the moment. He notices his surroundings. He’s in a tent. There’s a rip in the ceiling, and he sees the night sky and stars. It’s cold. He’s naked as his name day, except for something on his lower right leg — a bandage. There’s something sticky on his chest, which he supposes is an ointment for burns.

Brienne is sitting at his side. She wipes a warm, damp cloth over his stomach. He shivers, and stares up at the little piece of the sky.

“I know you’re awake,” she says. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

She dabs at his side, and he flinches — he forgot that psycho Euron Greyjoy stabbed him.

 _Because I don’t know what to say,_ he thinks. He thought he’d never see her again, and now...

She sighs, and rolls him onto his side. He now has a view of the fabric wall of the tent, a lantern, Oathkeeper resting against a table.

He hears water rung out from the cloth, and it’s on him again.

“I’m sorry you didn’t die, like you wanted,” she says. She washes his back, down the curve of his spine. “But that’s the coward’s way out. Dying is easy. Living is harder.”

 _I am a coward,_ he thinks, and then, _Cersei would leave me to die._

“I am asking for what I want. I still want you, even though you hurt me.”

Add that to his list of horrible deeds.

His eyes sting.

“It’s fine if you don’t want me anymore, but I just want you to live,” she says, and her voice different, and he knows that she’s crying, too. He wants to reassure her that he still wants her like his lungs want air — but the words get stuck somewhere between his mind and his throat.

She turns him onto his back, walks away, and he thinks she’s left him, but she returns with a fresh pair of trousers. She puts them on him, and then covers him with a heavy, warm fur, tucking it around his shoulders.

She wipes at his face with her hand. He blinks and another tear escapes. It runs down the side of his face, to his ear.

“Jaime,” she says, and she leans forward so she’s in his vision. Her hair is tinted gray from dirt and smoke. Her lip is split, from either a fight or her worrying it with her teeth, or both. He thinks her nose has been broken again.

She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Brienne,” he says. His voice doesn’t sound like himself, but rough and quiet.

Weak.

Her blue eyes glimmer, like a sunrise breaking over a sea. “Please stay with me.”

“I’ll try,” he says, this time. He has a feeling she won’t let him go, again.

 

_._

 

Brienne’s panic wakes him up.

She must have been resting next to him; she’s half lying on his cot and her hair has fallen in her face. She grabs his hand and gives him a look that says  _be quiet._

They listen — shouting, blades, death.

Someone runs into the tent and Brienne jumps to her feet and draws her sword, but it’s only Pod.

He’s out of breath, trying to speak. “Daenerys is dead...Jon Snow...he...”

Jaime laughs. He didn’t think the bastard had it in him. If he ever gets out of here, he’ll share a drink with him and bond about being Targaryen killers.

“Her armies are revolting,” Pod says. “They’re killing every soldier who isn’t one of them.”

Jaime tries to sit up — he won’t let a Targaryen take any more lives — but Brienne shoves him down.

“You aren’t going anywhere.” She looks at him, and then to Pod. “Where is Lady Sansa?”

“With the Northmen,” Pod says. His tone does not inspire confidence in her safety.

Jaime sees the conflict within Brienne — does she protect her liege lady, or does she act on her wants and break her oath and stay with him? 

“Go,” Jaime says. “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m too much of an idiot to die properly, or so it seems.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Brienne says, and she leans down and kisses him hard and savage and her face is wet and he’s about to beg her to change her mind and stay but she parts from him and steps back, like if she’s too close she wouldn’t be able to trust herself.

“Guard him,” she snaps at Pod, and with one last look at Jaime, she leaves the tent with Oathkeeper already in her hands.

Pod clears his throat.

“She will be all right, Ser,” he says.

“Of course.” Jaime narrows his eyes at him. “You’re wearing my sword, boy.”

Pod’s hand goes to Widow’s Wail. “Get better and you can have it back.”

Jaime scoffs. He doesn’t think he’ll ever walk again, much less use a sword.

“I should use it on you,” Pod says, before respectfully adding, “Ser.” He looks at the tent flap, as though he’s waiting for what’s to come. “I would say I tried my best to defend you, but I was overpowered. She would understand. It would be worth it, for how you hurt m’lady.”

“Then go ahead—” Jaime starts, but is interrupted by Unsullied entering the tent.

“He’s a civilian,” Pod says, quickly. Jaime notes he needs to work on his deceit.

“Spare us the lies,” one of the soldiers say in the common tongue. “The Kingslayer’s whore has been seen spending lots of time in here, and she was seen carrying a man with a golden hand through the city.”

Jaime hardly has time to linger on the monicker _Kingslayer’s whore_ before Pod starts cutting them down. He’s out numbered four-to-one and Jaime’s skin jumps with the instinct to _fight,_ but his body is useless—

Brienne has taught the kid well. Jaime sees her moves in him — all brutal force and precise blows, but with the elegance of how to use his body.

“Good job,” Jaime says, less than a minute later when Pod is standing with the Unsullied on the ground around him, slain.

“I was only doing as Ser Brienne asked,” he replies.

They don’t speak to each other again, not all night when there are screams and fire and people dying, and Jaime finds himself praying, _please, any god who will listen to a sinner like me, please keep her safe—_

She stumbles into the tent the next morning, bloodied and exhausted but alive and Jaime reaches his hand out to hers.

She takes it.

It’s a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m super glad in the show they didn’t add the “Kingslayer’s whore” thing, but I am adding it in here because I am.


	3. Brienne II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She knows she should let him go, but has made her selfish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all the positive feedback! I'm so overwhelmed and very flattered <3
> 
> Also, the rating went up ✔

“You’re avoiding me.”

“I’ve been busy,” Brienne counters.

Jaime harrumphs, letting his disbelief known.

He’s not wrong, but neither is she. She _has_ been busy, with helping establish peace in the city and making sure Lady Sansa is safe, but every time she thinks _I could go see him_ , she makes an excuse to stay away. She had been so focused on him living, that she didn’t think past that — she was overwhelmed with happiness when he came back to her, but then it all came crashing down when she realized that things could not return to how they were, before.

She knows she should let him go, but he has made her  _selfish_.

So, she had him moved to one of the undamaged rooms in the Keep, locked away, and she goes to him as she pleases, as he’s injured and unable to go anywhere.

_“It seems I’m your prisoner once again,” he said._

_“Just like old times.” She does not say: you’re the one who imprisons yourself. The door is locked from the inside._

He sits up in bed, settling against the nest of pillows he’s made for himself. “You didn’t leave my side when I was dying, but now that I’m healthy you have all but forgotten I exist. Perhaps I should try dying again.”

Brienne wills herself not to react to his aspirations for death. It worries her that he says it so casually.

She always makes sure there’s never anything sharp in the room.

“I will visit you again tomorrow at the same time,” she says, and she leaves before he can provoke her into saying anything else. She locks the door with the key that only she, Tyrion, and Samwell Tarly have. She does not trust anyone else, as he is not the only one who wishes him dead.

 

.

 

She talks to the younger Lannister brother more often. Not that she enjoys his company better; Tyrion drinks too much, and he tries his best to get her to drown her sorrows, too. She won’t, not after his clever little drinking game revealed too much of herself. Their conversations are mostly by necessity. He was released soon after Daenerys died, because nobody could figure out what to _do_ and despite everything he was still the smartest man in Westeros — or so they say. Brienne has her doubts. She thinks he’s biding his time.

Tyrion hasn’t solved much. He mostly drinks and grouses about his mistakes, and she gets annoyed, and their conversations always end up about Jaime.

“My brother complains that he is lonely,” Tyrion says. “He is very annoying. I almost wish you left him under those rocks.”

“Do you expect me to do something about it?” She looks down at him. Even sitting side by side, she is taller.

“You carried his body from the wreckage,” he says. “I can’t ask you to save his heart and mind from destruction, too.”

“But you will ask it.”

He hides his expression behind his goblet.

“His self-deprecation is his best defense,” he says, when his wine is gone. He pours more. “It’s a family trait.”

She wonders what could have made the Lannister brothers so troubled and dysfunctional. Her first instinct is to blame their sister, but she knows Cersei was damaged in her own way.

She thinks of one of the colder nights in Winterfell, where it didn’t matter how many logs were put on the fire, the bitter chill did not leave. She and Jaime laid awake facing each other, talking and trying to stay warm. She held the end of his right arm between her hands. She knew the cold must make him ache — the deep scars on her collarbone twinge when the cold air hits them.

How he looked at her made her love him even more.

_“Tell me about Tarth,” he said. “Would it be warm there?”_

_“Yes. Winter hasn’t changed much on the island.” She rested her hand on his chest. “My father wrote to me last week. He said the sunny shores miss me almost as much as he misses me.”_

_Jaime made a thoughtful noise. “Does your father tell you that he loves you?”_

_“Of course.”_

_“My father never told me,” Jaime said, matter-of-fact. “And I don’t think he liked me very much, either.”_

_“Surely, he must have...,” she began, because even if Tywin Lannister was ruthless, he had to have loved his children, but Jaime laughed._

_“My sweet, sweet Brienne,” Jaime said. “The only thing my father told me with any regularity was that I was a failure.”_

“I don’t know how to help him,” Brienne says to Tyrion. She thinks of that far-off expression in Jaime’s eyes, like he’s somewhere else. “I don’t think he wants help.”

She startles when Tyrion touches her knee. It’s warm. It reminds of her Jaime.

“My brother never asks for what he wants, but his heart is very loud,” Tyrion says. “Why do you think the only times he smiles is when he talks of you?”

 

.

 

Brienne doesn’t want to be Jaime’s only chance for survival. She’s failed too many — she couldn’t save Renly or Lady Catelyn from death, and she failed to save Jaime from this hurt. She had consigned to losing him when he left her behind in Winterfell, but then he was alive and she fought the Stranger to keep him _here_ , with her, but she doesn’t know if that’s what he wants—

Tyrion pleaded for her to save Jaime’s aching soul, but what about hers?

She enters Jaime’s room without announcing herself. He sits up fast but relaxes back into his pillows when he sees it’s her. He smiles.

_The only times he smiles is when he talks of you._

“What do you want?” she asks. “Do you want me to end it for you? Suffocate you with your pillow? Drive my sword through your back? Find that dragon and have it burn you alive?”

He blinks.

“I want you to help me to the window,” he quietly says. He gestures to it with his right arm — he still isn’t wearing his golden hand. “I want to see.”

She helps him. Tarly made him a crutch for him to support himself while his leg mends, but he’s weak, and Brienne slips her arm around his middle as they go over to the window. He sits on the ledge. For a moment, Brienne worries that he might let himself fall out, like how his own child fell to his death, or how he pushed out the Stark kid.

He doesn’t. He just stares out at the city — it must be the first time he’s seen it, _since_. From high in the tower, all of it can be seen. Every toppled building, every home that was burnt to the ground. What used to be a bright city is now gray, and muted.

She looks at Jaime. Rage fills his eyes, then grief, and then settles on something between the two.

He holds out his hand for her to take. She does.

“I should have killed Aerys sooner,” he says, “before he could put that mad dragon child in her mother’s belly.”

She doesn’t disagree.

“There isn’t anything you — or anyone — could have done.” She puts her hand to his face and makes him look at her. “Stop blaming yourself.”

_For her death_ , she wants to say, but she’s afraid to mention Cersei for fear of him going catatonic again.

“Have you heard the new name for me?” he asks, amused. “The Bellringer.”

“It’s better than Kingslayer.”

He frowns. “The plan didn’t work. I did it to save the city from destruction. Instead I surrendered the city from one mad queen to another.”

“Is that why you want to die?” she asks, and he looks so _so_ sad that she’s sorry she asked it, but then he leans forward to kiss her.

She turns her head, and his kiss lands on her cheek.

“Brienne.”  He nuzzles his face against hers.  “Hey."

 She pulls away to look at him.

He’s confused. She knows why — she’s kissed him a few days ago, but this moment doesn’t feel right for it, not like the impassioned kiss they shared in the tent before she went to fight the Targaryen forces.

“Why did you do that?” she asks. She wants to kiss him — she wants his skin against hers and she wants _him_ — but she doesn’t want him to think that everything is okay between them.

“I did it because I wanted to,” he murmurs. “I want you.”

His admission makes her flush and makes her warm low in her stomach.

He puts his lips at her throat, kissing her there.

Kiss thief.

“I will not be — I don’t—” It’s difficult to piece her words together when he’s being very annoying and kissing a trail up her neck to her ear. “I won’t be a consolation prize.”

“You aren’t, baby. You’re _gold_ —“

She stops him with a hand pressed gently to his chest. She pulls away, reluctant.

“I didn’t leave Winterfell because I wanted to leave you—”

“I know why you left,” Brienne says, interrupting. “You—”

“Damn it, let me talk!” he shouts. Brienne raises a brow at him, but she falls silent. He apologizes and starts again, calmer. “I left because I felt like I had to, for her—Cersei. Despite everything, despite everything she did, she is still my sister. Was,” he adds, self-correcting. “Our whole lives, it was only us. But then I realized I had more — Tyrion, you — and she had _nobody_ and I couldn’t let her die alone, and I hated leaving you, it hurt more than losing my hand but I knew you’d be okay—”

She shushes him, pulls him close. He lies his head against her chest and clutches at her jerkin.

“I know you had an impossible choice.” She cards her fingers through his hair. “I would’ve never asked you to choose between me and your family.”

Family. Because that’s who Cersei was, in the end. Not his lover, but his twin, who clung to him with her claws sunk in, and tried to take him with her.

“You’re too _good_ , Brienne, I don’t deserve you—”

She tightened her grip in his hair and pulls him back so they can look at each other. He doesn’t struggle — he lets out a soft whimper and leans into it. She thinks he would let her do anything.

That blind trust frightens her.

“Don’t tell me what I deserve.” She takes his shoulders and shakes him, as though she can rattle out all the bad from his head. “This — _us_ won’t work if you’re not going to be here for me.”

“...us?”

“Yes.” He would always be hers, and she would be his — he was since he gave her Oathkeeper, or maybe sooner. “But I’m not sure if you’re ready, yet.”

“I _love_ you.”

She could hate him how he makes her traitorous heart flutter.

“I love you, Jaime.” She does, endlessly. “But that doesn’t fix everything.”

Jaime nods, and looks back out to the city.

 

.

 

Her and Pod have dinner together in her room. Neither want to be in the company of anyone else — everyone wants to talk about the wars, or who died, or what they’re going to do next.

Food is scarce, but Pod is resourceful. Tonight: baked chicken, a loaf of bread, and a lot of ale.

He waits until she’s had a glass or two of drink before he says, “Ser Jaime was less melancholy than usual when I took him his dinner.”

“Was he?” She aims for nonchalance, but it sounds strained.

Pod grins. He knows her too well.

“Yes. I wonder why. Perhaps it was what he mentioned, that you still love him.”

Even though Pod knows, it makes her blush. “He never knows when to shut his damn mouth.”

“So you admit it.”

She grunts. “I admit I shouldn’t have told him.”

“It isn’t a weakness to love,” Pod says. “Love requires bravery. Loving someone is like...going into a battle blindfolded, and without armor.”

She wonders when her squire became so wise.

“You and Ser Jaime are the two bravest people I know. You’re meant to be together, like lovers in a song.”

“ _Podrick_ ,” she says, admonishing.

“I mean it! There’s even one about you and him.”

“There is not!”

“There _is_ ,” Podrick says, and he starts to sing, “ _There was a knight without honor, and a tall maid who had as much as she height upon her, so she gave him some of hers—”_

“Nonsense.”

_“—and he had nothing to give her in return, so he gave her his sword and said, ‘only hold onto mine,’—”_

“Pod!”

“— _and they tried to forget but love never does, and so to each other they came, and the knight loved the warrior maid but he couldn’t make her his, so he knighted her instead—”_

Brienne should be offended. It’s crass and leaving out all the important details, but—

—it’s _them_.

“— _and the dragon came for vengeance and burned the lion’s den, but the Lady knight told the Stranger, ‘you won’t take my honorable knight’, and so she pulled him from the flames, carried him through the city and she took him to her b—”_

Brienne threw her fork at him, and he was wise enough to stop.

 

.

 

That night she dreams of Jaime pleading with her to save him but she doesn’t come for him, so he shatters a mirror and takes a shard and cuts open his neck—

She runs to his room barefoot and in only her shift, her hands shaking as she unlocks his door and prays, _don’t let me be too late, he’s been asking for help and I didn’t help him—_

Jaime is asleep in his bed, snoring.

She closes the door behind her and nearly weeps with relief.

It’s then that she knows that she can’t live without him.

She goes to his bedside. The moon is big and bright tonight, and the soft light illuminates his features. The silver in his hair shines, and his features look softer. He looks much younger, peaceful, but he’s frowning in his sleep.

She touches his mouth. His eyelids flutter, and then slowly open.

“Wha—?” he asks, sleep slurred. He props himself up on his elbow. “Brienne? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She sits on the bed. “I don’t know.”

He sits up fully. The blanket falls to his lap. He isn’t wearing anything. She looks at his chest. The burns are healing well, but he’s going to have a scar. She thinks of that ridiculous song, _she pulled him from the flames—_

“You can tell me.” He puts his hand over hers. “You can tell me anything.”

“I don’t know if I want to.” She doesn’t want to admit to herself. She’s supposed to be stronger than this.

“Please.” He kisses the corner of her mouth. “Please?”

She knows he knows. That she wants him. Even if she’s kind of upset with him. He slips his hand under her shift and palms her breast. He can probably smell her arousal, wet between her legs.

“Please,” he repeats, his breath hot at her neck. “It isn’t nice to keep secrets.”

“I miss your body,” she says. “I want to lay with you.”

“ _Fuck_ , Brienne—”

“That doesn’t mean that things would be as they were. I meant everything I said earlier. I love you, but...” She pauses for him to respond but he keeps kissing and biting at her neck — gods, she’s going to have all sorts of marks and she will have to cover them with her clothing — and when he doesn’t answer she continues, “But I really, really want to...”

“You want to fuck?” He does look at her, then. “You’re horny.”

She isn’t ashamed. She never was a proper, conventional maiden anyway, and she never planned to marry. She _wanted_ to lay with Jaime for her first time — she wanted him, and he wanted her, and that was enough.

_“Why didn’t we do this sooner?” Jaime had asked. He touched her everywhere, except the place she wanted to be touched most. “We could have been doing this all through the Riverlands. Maybe then we wouldn’t have gotten captured because we would have been too busy.”_

_He was doing too much talking and not enough kissing. “You were my prisoner,” she said._

_“So?” and he rubbed his fingers against a place that made them both fall silent._

Jaime’s mind may have been distant recently, but she wants him in a way she can have him — bare and vulnerable and sharing that mind-numbing bliss that comes with sex. The comfort of her body knowing his. Her body yearns for it, ever since she had it. She has wanted it for years, unknowingly — she thought those _feelings_ surrounding Jaime were purely compassion, but then Jaime kissed her and like a spark fanned into a flame, she realized that while she did care for him deeply, she wanted to fuck him until she couldn’t walk straight.

And he desires her as much as she does him — she didn’t understand how someone as attractive as him would want someone like her.

_“I think you’re sexy,” Jaime told her, and he pressed his hardness against her. “That’s because of you.”_

_“But—”_

_“And frankly, I don’t care if anyone else does. I don’t want any competition.”_

Feeling bold, she puts her hand in his lap. His erection is evident though the blanket.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes,” he says. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to do much.”

“That’s fine,” she says, and she presses at his shoulders for him to lie down. He does, but his gaze doesn’t leave hers, not as she pulls the blanket off of him and slides down between his legs.

“You don’t have to,” he says, quiet.

“I know.” He says that every time, and while she supposes it’s kind, it mostly makes her sad for him. He had told her that Cersei only used her mouth on him when she wanted something.

But she found she didn’t mind it — she even enjoys it herself. She knew of women pleasuring men in Renly’s camp in that way, and she thought of it as demeaning, and a chore at best. She doesn’t know what compelled her to do it with Jaime — he didn’t ask — but she had his cock in her hand and she thought, _I wonder what he tastes like._

She was a bit clumsy and enthusiastic at first — Jaime had to shriek, “teeth!” and she gagged a few times, but once she figured it out, it was quite nice.

She always thought of sucking cock as an act of submission, but there’s something powerful about having the most delicate part of Jaime under her control, where just a flick of her tongue makes him tremble. She likes that she can make him swear and gasp for breath and grind his heels into the mattress, overcome with need. But what’s more surprising is that she likes the act itself. She likes the warmth and fullness in her mouth and she likes that it makes her feel _good._

She wraps her hand around his length and licks him base to tip, and then takes him in her mouth. He lets out a strangled noise and swears, and that makes her pulse with need. She puts her other hand to his hip and closes her eyes, lowering her mouth on him.

“Feels good,” Jaime mumbles. He reaches down with his left hand and touches her shoulder, and then tucks her hair behind her ear so it’s not in her face. “Brienne.”

When they were intimate, she thought that he might think of someone else—that another name might fall from his lips, but it was always, always hers.

He won’t last long. She can tell by how his cock twitches in her mouth and how he tastes different. She pulls off, licks at the head while stroking him with a tight grip. He looks down at her briefly but his head flops back on his pillow and he moans, loud enough that anyone would definitely know what they are doing.

In the beginning, Jaime was surprisingly quiet when they fucked. He would mutter broken phrases like _yes_ _please_ and _like that_ and _more_ and _Brienne_ but he made no other sounds more than a frantic panting and soft grunts, and when it was too much he buried his face in her shoulder to muffle his pleasure.

Without him telling her, she realized: he’s used to needing to be quiet. If he had been discovered bedding his sister, he would have been executed along with her and their children.

However, in Winterfell there was no need for quiet — and she knew she definitely was _not_ quiet — so she said, “ _you can be louder, Jaime,”_ and that was all the encouragement he needed; the next morning Tyrion sat next to them and elbowed his brother and said, “ _I heard you having fun last night.”_

“Brienne—” His hips jerk forward, desperate. She holds him down and takes him further in her mouth and sucks, pressing her tongue against the ridge. He lets out a low, guttural sound that goes right to her core, and if she didn’t want to keep her hold on him, she’d slip a hand between her thighs.

“I’m going to—” he says, and then he’s thicker on her tongue and then a second later he spills in her mouth.

She swallows most of it. He’s impatient and tugs at her arm for her to lie next to him. Mindful of his hurt leg, she crawls and settles against him. He has to scoot over so she can fit without falling off the side of the small bed. It’s almost comical.

He kisses her even though her mouth and chin is sticky with his release. She sighs against his lips, content, but then he licks at her face, cleaning away the taste of himself.

She shivers.

“Open your legs,” he says, his voice low and rough.

She’s so wet and aching for anything that it’s instant relief when he slips two fingers inside her. He’s sloppy about it and there’s no preamble to getting her off as fast as possible, fucking her with his fingers and rubbing her clit with his thumb. She had been half there already, and she comes with his hand on her.

He wipes his fingers on the blanket, and then pulls it over them.

“I didn’t say I was spending the night,” she says, but she’s spent and tired and she doesn’t really want to move.

“Please?” he asks, softly, and that’s all he has to do. To want.

She knows in the morning when she’s seen leaving his room, barefoot and wearing his jacket and breeches, people will whisper _Kingslayer’s whore_ behind her back. However, she realizes she doesn’t care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really bad at writing songs/ballads. But I put in a sex pun, so.


	4. Jaime II

The thing is — Jaime doesn’t want to die. He just doesn’t want to exist anymore. He hurts too damn much. The burns on his chest feel just as hot as when he got them, he can’t move without wincing because he was stabbed twice by a crazy pirate, and as for his leg, Tarly said he might have a limp, if he’s lucky. He doesn’t ask for the outcome if he’s unlucky.

But none of it compares to the pain of losing Cersei. His lover. His children’s mother. His sister. His twin.

His other half.

And that half of him is dead.

He tried to put that pain in a box, lock it and put it away, but it’s so full that it bursts open and spills out because there is too much of Cersei. How did it get this way, where he can’t unravel where she ends and he begins? At a time, he wanted that, he wanted to forget himself and only know her.

He hates it. He hates that he was so stupid. He hates that he let others make his life for him. He hates  _himself_. He hates that he doesn’t know if everything he hates about himself is because of her. He hates that she isn’t alive so he can tell her.

 _“I hate you,”_  he told her once, before he left for the North. He did, he hated her, in a way that he could. He remembers the day: when she called Tommen — their dear, kind boy — a traitor. He probably hated her before then, for a long time, but it took that to realize it. But she was of him, and he hated  _himself_ , and that hate was so wound within himself that he didn’t realize, until he could see her apart from him.

 _“But you still love me,”_ Cersei said, and Jaime said,  _“damn you, damn you, damn you.”_

Mutually assured destruction. If she went, he would too, so he acted in self-preservation, not to keep himself alive or her, but  _them._

And he failed.

Like he’s failed everyone.

And Brienne.

He tried. She was ridiculous and incredible, she could knock him on his ass as well as she could knock sense into him. Sometimes, his arm still tingles where she grabbed him in that dragonpit and said,  _“fuck loyalty.”_

He wants to hate her. He wants to hate her because she thinks he’s  _good_  and  _honorable_  and that he’s  _worth it_  but he can’t—

_“I hate all queens and kings, I hate the armies, I hate the world, I hate myself. The kingdom is a mass of fools and knaves, but I can make an exception for you,” he told her, in his room up in one of the tallest towers in the Keep, mumbled against the pale skin of her shoulder. She tasted of sunlight._

_“Oh, do shut up,” Brienne said, and he did. He’s used to shutting up._

_Brienne turned over to face him. “I didn’t actually mean for you to be quiet.” She kissed the place between his brows. “Talk to me, Jaime.”_

_But then, he didn’t know what to say._

He thinks of reasons to stay alive. To keep Tyrion safe. To see what happens next. Dornish wine. So Brienne will be happy.

Is she happy?

He thinks so. He never really knows, anymore.

He’ll live, until he doesn’t.

 

.

 

Brienne has become reckless. That happens in war, when so much is lost and so much is almost lost, and it isn’t like her — but he supposes she’s changed, like him.

She sleeps in his bed at night, not caring what anyone thinks of her warming the Kingslayer’s bed. Everyone must know. She leaves his room with that just-had-sex swagger and she  _smells_  like him. He wonders if her Lady Stark can smell it too — that he came on her tits, her face, and she merely wiped herself clean of his release, and then went on about her day.

They don’t really talk anymore, about  _them_. She will tell him about her day, about what’s happening in the burnt capital, but as soon as any delicate words are spoken she says, “Not now,” and kisses him instead.

Not that he minds. Fucking distracts him from his aches and he forgets everything else but her.

Although, it’s still a bit of a surprise when she comes to his room midday with an insatiable need for his cock. She is a maid no longer — she just sits next to him and kisses him rough and says, “I need you,” and she moves the blanket aside and puts her hand on him. He quickly stiffens and he wants to tell her that he loves her hands, he loves their warmth and her long fingers and he loves that they’re calloused like his own. He wants to tell her that he loves every part of her. 

But she seems disinterested. She removed only her glove to jerk him off. If he’s honest, it’s arousing for her to take him fully dressed and wearing Oathkeeper at her hip, but she’s handling his cock like she’s doing a mundane task. She strokes him methodically but she’s too busy complaining to make it really pleasant—

“Your brother is  _infuriating_. He keeps dismissing my ideas, but then that imbecile Bronn made the exact same suggestion I said yesterday and your brother acted like it was the most brilliant thing he’s ever heard.”

He looks at her. She’s furious, her face flushed and she’s clenching her jaw. She probably didn’t let that show with others. He imagines she swallowed it down and stomped up here, waiting until she was with him to unleash it.

It shouldn’t, but he admits it does things for him.

“But when Lord Tyrion speaks with the commander of the Unsullied, who does he want protecting him—?”

“Can you please not talk about my brother when you’re touching my cock?”

Brienne stops for a moment, and no, that’s not what he wanted — but she starts up the rhythm again, gripping him tighter.

“Are you jealous?” she asks, and the smile she gives him looks like she wants to devour him whole. “Do you get upset when the topic isn’t about you?”

“Perhaps,” he says, breathless. “I am quite delicate— _oh—_ “

At least when she’s blowing him, she can’t talk about other men.

When he’s finished, sweaty and spent, he touches her leg. “Let me,” he says.

“I’m fine.” She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, stands up, and then after a moment she leans down to kiss him. She pushes her tongue into his mouth, making sure he tastes himself.

“Later,” she says, and she leaves him, locking the door behind her with a click.

She always does come back. At night she comes to his room, undresses and lies next to him in bed. She tells him what she did, and it’s usually the same thing: meet with Lady Sansa, stand next to Lady Sansa while she talks to people, argue with Tyrion, walk around the city. Sometimes, she cries about the horrors she’s seen, babes burnt in their cribs, structures destroyed that have stood for a thousand years. Sometimes, she says nothing at all, she just kisses him and he does the best he can to comfort her. Grief, he understands.

“I love you,” she tells him every night. The way she says it, he thinks it’s as much for her as it is for him.

 

.

 

_His hand throbbed. Or where his hand used to be. He didn’t know how it could hurt when it wasn’t there anymore. The pain pulsed in time with his heartbeat, reminding him that he was ruined._

_Nothing, nothing, nothing._

_The Bloody Murmurs kept him unbound, as they knew he was useless and couldn’t run away or harm them. Brienne, however, had her wrists tied together. Jaime wished she had a sword, dagger,_ anything _so she could kill their captors. She could do it, easily, and she would be glad to do it._

_Neither of them had a blanket to lie on top of, or cover themselves with. But lying in the dirt was inconsequential, compared to what he’s been through, or his year spent in the cell of the Northern army. Brienne didn’t complain either. But then again, he has never heard her complain. “At least we have a fire, and are away from them,” she said, nodding towards the group, who made camp fifteen feet away from them, and then she settled down on the ground, lying end-to-end with her feet to his._

_Small mercies._

_His stomach hurt. He was hungry, even though Brienne forced him to eat. It didn’t settle well. She must’ve realized because she had shoved water at him to drink._

_He was going to die, far away from Cersei. She probably won’t know what happened to him._

_He closed his eyes. He saw King’s Landing igniting in green fire, but it’s Cersei who gave the command._

_“Kingslayer?”_

_Brienne was sitting up and looking at him. Her eyes shined like glass in the firelight._

_“What?”_

_“You were making a noise,” she said, softly._

_He was crying. Why didn’t she just admit it?_

_“Don’t worry about me, wench,” he said, but shouldn’t have — his voice betrayed him and it came out broken and shivering._

_She glanced over to the sellswords. They were drunk, and only one was half watching them._

_And then she scooted so she lay next to him, her front facing his back._

_“For warmth,” she said. “Nothing more.”_

_He was warmer with her large body next to his. He was about to ask her how she could stand sleeping next to someone so dishonorable, but he realized that she must’ve been freezing, too. But he smelled awful, like death, and he thinks she’d rather be cold than be near him._

_He looked over his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, attempting to will sleep to herself, her bound hands resting against her chest._

She could kill a man with her hands, _he thought._ Maybe she would kill me, if I asked her nicely. An act of mercy.

_“Wench,” he whispered, but she gently kicked his leg._

_“Sleep,” she said. “We need our strength.”_

_We._

_He slept, warmer that he had in a year._

 

.

 

“Daenerys’ armies are leaving,” Tyrion says. “They’re going back to Essos.”

“What? Is there nothing else they wanted to destroy?”

Tyrion came to visit Jaime, with two bottles of wine. Jaime sits up in against the headboard surrounded by his throne of pillows; Tyrion sits in the chair next to him, and they pass the bottle back and forth.

Tyrion makes a grim face. Jaime knows he regrets all of it — supporting the dragon queen, encouraging her, helping her do what she did.

He knows how it feels. He was complicit of the crimes Cersei committed for the game of thrones. So many lies, too many murders for their secrets. And the ones he didn’t directly commit, those were his fault too — the explosion of the Sept and the death of everyone inside. Tommen’s death...

“As I’m sure you know, there’s a council. Representatives from all regions of Westeros,” Tyrion says. He takes a long drink and hands it to Jaime. “Our discussion today was what to do with you.”

“No wonder my ears were tingling.” He drinks, and then again. “I’m sure execution was discussed.”

“Yara Greyjoy suggested that, yes.” Tyrion frowns. “A few others wanted you to take the Black.”

Jaime laughs. “And do what? There is no wall, and the threat of the White Walkers is no more.”

“You would be sent far away to live out the rest of your days in obscurity.”

“In the North, freezing my balls off. No thanks. I’d rather die.”

Tyrion holds out his hand for the bottle. “Luckily for you, you have a _very_ clever brother. I convinced them that you left Winterfell with the intention to...eliminate our dear sister.”

Jaime’s breath catches in his throat. “I could never have killed her.”

“Never?”

Jaime shakes his head. The thought crossed his mind, a few times, but every time the scenario played out in his mind, he was the one who always ended up with a sword in his belly — either Cersei did it, or he turned the sword on himself instead.

“Nevertheless,” Tyrion says, “everyone deemed you as deserving another chance...again. It was probably because your lady knight vouched for you. Again.”

“Brienne?”

“Do you know any other tall knights whom you’re fucking?” Tyrion sets the empty bottle on the floor and opens a new one. “She said she knows you,  _truly_. It was very moving.”

So, she’s embarrassed. That explains why she hasn’t been to see him today. Everyone knows they’re fucking, but it’s not been openly acknowledged. He doesn’t blame her.

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” She needs to stop risking  _her_  honor to protect his.

“She said you saved the city,” Tyrion says, low.

“Tried.” He shows his hand to Tyrion, where there’s still a faint rope burn on his palm. “I rang the bells. You know this. Everyone knows this. They gave me that asinine name  _Bellringer._ But I didn’t save anything. The city still burned.”

“But you did before,” Tyrion says. “Ser Brienne had an enlightening story about a Mad King, some wildfire, and a young golden knight with an impossible decision.”

“Don’t.” He feels as though there’s a fire within himself and he’s choking on the smoke — he kept that secret hidden better than his incestuous affair and his bastard children, but Brienne told every major house in the continent, undoing all of it.

“It’s true,” Tyrion says. A statement, not a question. “Why didn’t you ever tell anyone?”

Jaime shrugs. “Because everyone had judged me already. Because I did break an oath. Because I should have done it sooner.”

“Because you didn’t do it for praise.”

Jaime can’t handle it when he looks at him like that — like he’s seeing him as his brave big brother.

“You did it because you cared,” Tyrion says. “You’ve always cared. I knew it wasn’t true when you told me — when you thought it would be the last time we’d see each other — that you never cared about the innocents. You just wouldn’t let yourself care, then. You always do that. Shut down when it’s too much.” He leans forward, touches under Jaime’s chin so he looks at him. “Like you are right now.”

He’s right. He had been retreating, away.

“I’m still the Kingslayer,” Jaime says. “I still broke my oath. Still dishonored. Nobody will believe it.”

“Probably for the best.” Tyrion grins at him, wily. “There might be another song written about you.”

Jaime grimaces. “If it weren’t written so horribly, I would think you wrote that dreadful ballad about me and Brienne. It doesn’t even rhyme.”

“I think it’s romantic—”

“ _Tyrion_.” Brienne had told him about the song a few days ago, half scowling and holding onto where Oathkeeper rested at her side, like she was ready to use it on whoever wrote the song. It is  _sweet_  he supposes, as songs go, but he and Brienne are not a song.

“Fine. Let everyone believe you are cruel and unloved.” Tyrion tries to force a smile, but something else takes over his face — his chin trembles and he blinks rapidly. “I’m very glad you didn’t die, brother.”

“Well, I couldn’t leave you to be the only Lannister in the world.”

Tyrion’s resolve breaks, then. He leans forward and he throws his arms around Jaime’s shoulders, hugging him tight, like he might lose him if he let go.

_“Don’t leave me,” Tyrion pleaded. “You can’t leave me here alone. You’re supposed to become lord!”_

_“I’m sorry.” Jaime was — if there was a way to stay at Casterly Rock and stay with Cersei, he would’ve, but to do as his sister wished, he must disappoint his brother. “I’ll visit often.”_

_“No, you won’t!” Tyrion shouted, and even though he was smarter than Jaime in every way, in the moment he looked like the child of eight that he was, stomping his feet and crying. “You’re to guard the King now, and he’ll never let you come home.”_

_Jaime sighed, and kneeled to Tyrion’s height. He stands more than a foot taller than his brother. The maester says he won’t get much taller._

_“I will. I promise,” Jaime said. He put his hands on Tyrion’s shoulders. “I’ll always be here for you.”_

_“You’re the only one who notices I’m even alive,” Tyrion said, and he hugged Jaime so hard that he almost knocked him over._

_Tyrion had been correct — Jaime didn’t return to Casterly Rock until after he bore the name Kingslayer._

Jaime brushes away Tyrion’s messy curls, and kisses his forehead.

“I told you I’d always be here for you,” he says. “I have been known to keep my oaths, occasionally.”

And Tyrion lightly laughs, shakes his head, and sets his feet on the floor. He looks as though he’s about to say something else, but he does not — however he stops at the door.

“I sent her remains home.” Tyrion doesn’t need to say  _who_  he’s talking about. “Her bones will rest with mother’s and father’s.”

“Thank you,” Jaime says, quietly.

May their sister rest, and leave him alone.

 

.

 

“You told,” Jaime says. “Why I killed Aerys.”

Brienne inclines her head up. She’s standing at his bedside; she doesn’t plan to stay long, or she hasn’t decided yet. “So?”

“It wasn’t for you to tell.”

“You never told me not to.”

“It wouldn’t matter anyway, you never do as I say, stubborn wench—“

“Like you aren’t?”

“You told everyone because you want to make people like me, but they won’t, I will always be wicked—“

“Why do you want everyone to hate you? Why do you want  _me_  to hate you?”

When did she start crying? He goes to wipe her tears away with his thumb but she swats at his hand. She doesn’t bother to rid of them herself — she lets them flow down her cheeks, making wet trails from her blue eyes, like rivers.

“ _Why,_ Jaime?”

“Because,” he says, “you should.” She should because she will, eventually —everyone always does.

“I can’t,” she says, “not as long as I draw breath, or long after I’m gone.”

They fuck that night, with him going inside her. They hadn’t since the night he left Winterfell, and they have only used their mouths and hands on each other since she rescued him — she said that he had to be  _careful_  but he said  _fuck being careful,_  and she said  _alright, then fuck me_ —

It takes a moment to find a way to arrange themselves so he’s comfortable. He isn’t strong enough to be on top and she’s afraid she’ll hurt him if she rides him, so they settle for being on their sides, facing each other. It’s a nice position, one they hadn’t tried before. They can kiss and touch wherever they please. Jaime touches her breasts, runs his hand down between her legs, but she has the advantage of  _two_  hands and touches him everywhere — his neck, his nipples, his earlobe, the soft part of his belly, his hardness, and she even reaches around and squeezes his ass. He complains, cants his hips forward and rubs himself against her hip.

“Impatient,” she says, but she guides him in her. They both let out a pleased groan, like  _finally_ , and Jaime puts his right arm around her back, pulling her closer. He adores her for how she doesn’t flinch when his stump touches her shoulder, but she didn’t when he dragged it across her breast earlier. She never acts like he’s less, or repulsive; she gives herself to him entirely.

She hitches her leg over his hip, wraps it around him, her ankle pressing against where his ass and thigh meet. It makes him slide in deeper, and she makes a lovely  _uh_  sound when he fills her.

“Jaime.” She moves against him, but there isn’t a lot of motion lying this way — only shallow thrusts, resulting in a slow, steady grind.

He splays his hand across her chest and he feels her heart beating rapidly against his palm. He thinks his must be going as fast, or faster. She’s gorgeous — sweat beads on her forehead, her lips are kiss-bitten red, her eyes heavy-lidded but looking at him. She makes him feel good — warm and wet on his cock, of course — but she feels  _safe_ , everything makes sense when he’s with her, she makes him feel like he can be the good man she thinks he is.

When he left her behind in the cold, miserable North, when he thought he was going to die, the only solace he had was the memory of her. That she was the last person who he kissed. The last person he laid with, the last person who made him smile. The last person who made him feel safe. Loved. He had hoped she knew.

But now he’s here with her, and he can tell her every day.

He wants more — it’s sensual, but he wants to fuck until his mind knows nothing but bliss. He pushes forward, seeking, but all he can do are awkward, hurried jerky motions that hurt his ribs. He whines, frustrated, but she shushes him and slots her arm under his, curls her hand at his back.

“Jaime,” she says. Her breath catches in her throat, and she lets out another guttural  _uh_. “Slow down, sweetheart. It’s okay.” She kisses all over his face — his nose, his parted lips, where he knows he has wrinkles next to his eyes.

“I love you,” he says, and she smiles so raw that he wants to cry. He does as his lady requests and  _slows down_ , and for a moment it’s just them joined, breathing hot in each other’s faces.

“You feel so  _good_ , Jaime,” Brienne says, and it’s silly that the little bit of praise goes straight to his cock, but it does — he throbs with  _need_  and he makes a noise he’s kind of embarrassed about, but Brienne shifts where her other hand is trapped between their bodies and takes his hand in hers, entwining their fingers together.

It goes quickly after that. He feels her thigh flex against his hip and she starts to move, rocking forward on his cock and he matches her movements. He’s always amazed at how well they go together, either in the bedroom or the battlefield — like they’re two parts of the same, like their swords—

He feels his peak coming quickly and he goes to pull out, but she holds on tight to him. “It’s okay,” she says, kissing him sloppy and open-mouthed. “I want you in me.”

He comes, spilling inside her, and he shouts and it’s half a sob, which he buries in her neck. She lets out a satisfied moan that makes him continue to thrust forward, taking all he can but it’s too much and he doesn’t know why he’s crying — his shoulders shake and he can’t take in a full breath, caught between his orgasm and that he can’t stop fucking crying—

Brienne is good, though. She pets his hair and kisses him, calms him from whatever this is. She whispers kind things, like  _breathe, sweetheart_ and  _it’s going to be okay_  and  _love you_  and he believes her, she’s the only thing he believes.

She’s patient, but once he turns his attention to her pleasure she is quite eager — she backs away from him just enough so that he can slip his left hand down between them. He’d like to put his mouth on her but that would require them to move and he doesn’t think he could, and he doesn’t think she wants to either — she wants it  _now_. She tells him,  _I need,_ and she gasps and throws her head back when he rubs at her clit. She’s wet with her excitement and his release, and she’s loud, going  _yes there_  and  _Jaime please_  and  _oh_ , and she comes, unabashed and beautiful.

 

.

 

Brienne has most of the next afternoon free. The council cannot decide on who should be king — or queen — and they can’t decide what to do about anything, so Lady Sansa dismisses her for the day.

Brienne brought lunch to his room, along with shears. She also has a change of her clothes for him, which he greatly welcomes. The tunic fits well enough, but the breeches are a bit too long and surprisingly, are too wide in the hips. But they’re comfortable and they smell like her, so it’s some of the finest things he’s ever worn.

He watches as she cuts her own hair. It has grown longer, where it comes almost to her jawline and can be tucked behind her ears. Jaime doesn’t care how she styles her hair, but he knows it annoys her when it’s longer. She looks in the mirror to guide her hands with the scissors but she does it so proficiently that she must have done it herself often.

“Since I was about four-and-ten,” Brienne says when he asks. She holds one strand and cuts another even with it. “When I was a girl,” she begins, and Jaime knows that stories that start like that are rarely happy for her.

“My Septa and the maids tried their best to make me presentable for potential suitors,” she says. “They said my face and my gangly body weren’t doing myself any favors, but maybe they could fix my hair to make me  _pretty_.”

She snips the hair at the back of her head. Jaime is impressed at how well she’s doing.

“I used to have long hair, like my mother.” There’s a ghost of a smile before the neutral expression returns. “I didn’t think anything of it until then, nor did I realize how unattractive I was.”

“Brienne—”

“ _Jaime_ ,” she says, warning. He huffs but quiets as she continues. “They tried all sorts of styles but needless to say, you can’t fix ugly.”

“It’s perspective.”

“It’s what it is.” She says it nonchalantly, like it’s something she’s accepted a long time ago. “So, while they were all debating what to do with my hair, I went and chopped it all off.”

Jaime laughs. “I’m sure that went over well.”

She does that thing where she tries not to smile, but she can’t hide it on her face. “I was properly scolded. My Septa gave me a good beating. She said she didn’t know why the gods gave her such a difficult child to contend with.” She studies her reflection, and evens the other side. “They were debating what to do with me, how could they make me acceptable. They were treating me like a commodity — but that’s what all high-born women are, right? Or any woman? I didn’t want that future, someone else telling me how to dress and how to wear my hair while giving me backhanded insults, while men can be big and fat and rude and unkempt.”

Jaime nods. A woman’s life is unfair. He knew this growing up with Cersei — they were treated differently, even as children, which they didn’t understand because they saw themselves as the  _same_. But they grew older and the ways of the world became clear: he could become whatever he wanted — Lord of their home, a knight, a maester if he wanted — whereas Cersei’s only option was to become a wife and _obey._

“How did you defy your Septa next?” he asks.

“I took my father’s razor and shaved the sides of my head and the back.” She motions at the top of her head. “And I kept the top longer, here. It curled and kind of flopped over.”

Jaime laughs so hard his ribs hurt. “Oh, you are a spiteful thing. I love it.”

She ruffles her hair, shaking out the loose pieces before smoothing it back as she normally wears it. “I had seen a Dornish man with his hair like that. I liked it. But best of all, everyone stopped telling me what to do with my hair.”

She cuts his hair, after she’s done with her own. She trims the rough ends and the length in front because it was nearly in his eyes, and she grooms and trims his beard, too.

“I thought you liked it,” Jaime mumbles. “You said you liked it between your thighs.”

She blushes.

“I do, but you were starting to look like a Wildling.” She turns his head to the side, tidies his sideburn, then does the same to the other side. She sets the shears down and holds his face in her hands. “There’s my Jaime.”

It kind of hurts to look at her so he leans in and kisses her sternum through her shirt.

“I never hated you,” she says. He feels the reverberation of it, and he feels her sigh before he hears it.

“Never?” He looks up at her. “Not when you drug me through the Riverlands on a rope while I insulted you the entire time? Not when I left you alone in Winterfell?”

“You were my prisoner, I had to remain impartial,” she says, and he rolls his eyes at that — that’s so  _her,_ honorable to a fault. “And I didn’t hate you when you left me. I was devastated, but I didn’t hate you.”

“I’m sorry.” He feels like he’s said it a million times. He will say it a million more. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t leave because I didn’t want you anymore—”

“You think  _that’s_  why I was upset?” she asks, her voice rising. “I knew what you were doing — some self-sacrifice bullshit and you were trying to  _save_  me from yourself.”

“Well—,” Jaime begins. He doesn’t even know how to explain, but Brienne talks over him.

“You thought you were doing the right thing. It isn’t for me to say if it was or not. You left because that was your instinct, and because you were afraid — and you left for love. You loved me, I guess—”

“I did,” Jaime says. “I do.”

“But you didn’t love me enough to stay,” she says, and Jaime wishes he were back under all those rocks.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I...I can’t explain what it’s like. Why I am like this.”  _There are no men like me. Only me._  “I am trying, Brienne.”

“I know,” she says, muted. She threads her arm through his and helps him stand, walk the couple of feet from the chair to his bed. She sits next to him, holds his hand in both of hers, beings them to her mouth and kisses his knuckles.

“I’m staying now,” he says.

She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I was upset when you left because I thought you were going to die,” she says. “I cried, because you were going to die, believing you’re a monster.”

“I didn’t die.” Every day, every breath, every pain is a reminder.

“No,” she says. “And now you’re alive and you have to live with it.”

Grief comes in like a tide — he goes under and it fills his lungs, suffocating. One moment he’s fine and the next he’s sobbing like a child. He turns away, tries to hide his face, but Brienne says, “oh, hells,” and pulls him to her chest, which makes him cry more. She doesn’t say anything, probably because she’s as uncomfortable as he is, but she pats his back and makes a reassuring sound.

He cries for Cersei, for their children, for  _himself_. His hand, his future and his past, that part of him that’s rotten but he desperately keeps trying to hold on to. He could let the rest of himself fester and die, but to live, he must let it go.

 _Dying is easy, living is harder_. It is, and it hurts — it’s like learning to fight with one hand. But now he can fight with his left as well as almost any man with two able hands, so he can live like this — except it kind of feels like dying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- the author kind of forgot to care to remember if Tyrion knew about why Jaime killed the king. But I'm going off book canon, that only Brienne knows.  
> \- I have some experienced some "kill your darlings" with this story because this story didn't go the way I intended, oops. oh well!  
> \- "I hate all kings and queens..." is inspired/taken from a letter Alexander Hamilton sent to J. Laurens that has the same sentiment, _I hate everything but you_  
>  \- "dying is easy, living is harder" is lovingly borrowed from Hamilton, the musical  
> \- I'm dragging my own song writing abilities  
> \- Brienne is describing that she gave herself an undercut as a youth, yes.  
> \- Thank you to bluecarrot, for making my words better, always.


	5. Brienne III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you intend to fight me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains discussions of sexual assault/rape

Brienne has the same dream she’s had every night since she found him half- dead under the ruin of the Keep. She’s in the city, it still smoldering and she’s trying to save Jaime — she knows he’s under the rubble, she hears his voice and catches a glint of his false hand — but no matter now many bricks she moves she never gets to him, and he becomes more and more buried and her chest hurts from breathing in ash and her muscles ache and she’s never going to _reach_ him—

She wakes up and he’s there, next to her, asleep.

The night terrors are one reason why she wants to share his bed — she doesn’t want to do more than open her eyes to confirm that her dreams aren’t real, and that Jaime is alive, safe.

She puts her hand on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing. Her father used to do the same when she was a child. When she asked him why, he said, _to make sure I haven’t lost you, too._

Jaime’s eyes flutter open. The moonlight makes the green of them shine like morning dew on leaves.

“What’s wrong?” He touches her wrist, slides his hand up her arm.

“Nothing.” She captures his hand in hers, kisses his knuckles. It looks like he is going to say more, but she massages the nape of his neck until his eyes droop low and he falls back into sleep.

.

She doesn’t know why she bothers to attend the council meetings. She doesn’t say much, and others talk over her when she does speak. She would think it’s because she’s a woman, but the men listen to Sansa and Yara Greyjoy. It’s just _her_. It makes sense. She isn’t head of a house and she isn’t that smart, nor good looking — long ago she realized that people are more likely to pay attention to you if you’re pretty.

“Ser Brienne?”

She blinks — she had lost track of the conversation. Everyone around the table is looking at her. She feels her face begin to redden.

“Pardon?”

A few snicker, but Tyrion smiles kindly at her and says, “Lord Edmure was inquiring about the health of my brother.”

Edmure Tully despises Jaime, so Brienne knows there’s something else to his interest. But she sits up straighter, says, “Ser Jaime is recovering well, thank you.”

“He’s lucky he has you to tend to him,” Bronn says, and then the half-repressed snickers turn into laughter and—

Ah. She’s part of a joke. This is familiar.

“You’ve been taking good care of his cock,” Bronn says. “Of course, I always knew you two would fuck. Just took a while ‘cause you’re so frigid, and his sister’s cunt had him trapped. But I had a bet that he’d get his cock into you, but nobody else believed me—”

Her stomach clenches, she feels sick. Nothing has changed. People still treat her like the thought of someone fucking her — someone liking her — is a joke. In an instant she feels as though she’s back in Renly’s camp, where all the men placed bets on who could bed her first. But nobody _wanted_ to, they just wanted to say they did, like she was a conquest. Nobody has ever wanted her—

—nobody except Jaime.

But does he, truly? Or is it only for something familiar? Or until he dies—? Doubt creeps in at the worst of times, whispers in her ears, _he left you once, he will again._

 _No,_ she tells herself. _He likes me. Loves me. He wants to lie with me_.

_He’s called me beautiful._

She could say that, that _Jaime called me beautiful and he kissed me and we made love,_ but she thinks they would only tease her more. She could also leave, but that would show that she’s bothered by it and she would rather die than let them do that to her.

She thought someone would change the topic, but they do not. She looks to the men who she thought were her comrades, if not friends, but they don’t stand up for her either. Samwell is caught between smiling apologetically and nervously laughing with everyone else, and Davos just looks down at the table. She didn’t count on Tyrion to help her, and she’s right — he’s making his own terrible raunchy comments. She thinks perhaps the women would be different, but Greyjoy and Arya are laughing, too. Out of everyone, Sansa is the only one who isn’t laughing, but she looks ahead, distant, and not meeting her eyes.

The Dornish prince, who she hasn’t exchanged more than three words with says, “I’ve heard he gave you his sword, my lady. Is it longsword or a dagger?”

More laughter. Brienne knows her face must be that horrible shade of pink.

Bronn, again: “You’ve earned yourself the name Kingslayer’s whore, but maybe he’s yours—“

“That’s enough.”

Sansa doesn’t have to speak loudly for everyone to listen to her and fall silent. Brienne thinks that there’s more to her power than because of her beauty.

“Ser Brienne is a high-born lady and a _knight_ and you will respect her,” Sansa says, her voice even toned. “In addition, she is my sworn sword and by insulting her, you are insulting me.”

The men stumble over their apologies. It doesn’t mean much to Brienne — they obviously didn’t respect her to begin with, and as it’s said, words are wind.

But it is nice to see them cower.

“Sorry, _ser_ ,” Bronn says. “It was all in good fun.”

She nods, acknowledging him, but scowls. If she flexes her arms it’s on accident, but it’s a good reminder to him that she could beat him bloody, if she wanted to.

.

 _She didn’t feel that different, the next morning. She had an ache between her legs that wasn’t unpleasant, similar to riding a new saddle, but she didn’t feel like something from her had been taken, lost_.

_However, when they walked into the hall in the morning to break their fast, she knew that something must have fundamentally changed within her, that it’s writ upon her face: that she’s no longer a virgin. Everyone looked at her — and at Jaime — and back at her, their gaze following them as they crossed the room and sat down together._

_“They’re staring,” she said to Jaime, and then quieter, “they know that we...they know we—”_

_“Fucked?” Jaime suggested, and he grinned when she blushed. “If they know, it’s because you keep looking at me like you know what’s underneath my clothes.”_

“Jaime.”

_“Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t sound like he was sorry at all._

_Horrible man. Horrible, wonderful man_.

_“Would it bother you if everyone knew?” He sounded nervous, almost, like when he came to her room and complained of the heat and tried to bite his shirt off. “That you aren’t a maiden anymore?”_

_“If I didn’t want to do it, I wouldn’t have.”_

_“Then are you ashamed of me?”_

_She scoffed. “If anything, you should be ashamed of me.” He was handsome — beautiful, even — and she was, well. Not._

_“Never,” he said, and he set his spoon down and reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “Stop trying to find a reason for me to end this, because you won’t find one.” A moment passed and then he said: “Trust me.”_

_“I do,” she replied, but she was not certain if she could trust herself._

_“If neither of us are ashamed, then perhaps we should announce it,” Jaime said, and he was smiling at her, the goofy smile that made the skin next to eyes crinkle. “I’ll tell everyone in the room — everyone in this castle.”_

_“Not necessary.”_

_“I’ll stand on the table and shout it—”_

_He made to stand up but she tugged him back down and she told him to stop that, but he laughed and when he looked at her like that, she would let him do anything._

_“You win,” he said. “It’ll be our secret.”_

_He was still smiling but something else flickered in his expression and his eyes went dull. She thought of what he hasn’t said — that he hid his relationship before and he’d do it again if he had to — and she understood why he thought she might be ashamed of him._

_She glanced down the table to where Davos Seaworth was having his meal and trying very diligently to ignore their shenanigans._

_“Ser Davos,” she said, getting his attention. He looked up at them, tired and resigned, like he was preparing himself to be annoyed._

_She cleared her throat. “Ser Jaime and I shared a bed last night.”_

_She looked to Jaime for his reaction. It was probably the first time she saw him stunned into silence._

_Davos, however, was not surprised — he just tipped his cup at them, flatly said, “Congratulations,” and went back ignoring them in favor of his meal._

_Jaime’s silence persisted, and she begun to think she was wrong to say anything. Maybe he was ashamed._

_She wouldn’t let it end before it truly started, so she nudged his foot with hers._

_“I don’t care what other people think,” she said and he opened his mouth to argue but she spoke first, “I don’t give a damn if someone judges me because of you. I never have. I proudly wore your sword and never denied who gave it to me. I defended you because I believe in you. I wanted you to fight by my side. I laid with you because I’ve wanted to for so long I forgot what it’s like to not want you.”_

_She didn’t intend to say all of that, and she wished that he’d stop her and say something, make fun of her, say she was silly, but he didn’t._

_“Thank you,” was all he said, like she was doing something honorable by caring for him._

_She sighed and set aside her spoon. The food had gone cold, anyway._

_“Do you want to go back to my room?” She attempted nonchalance but she sounded too eager, too hopeful._

_But she shouldn’t have worried — Jaime stood up so fast his knees knocked the table and said in a rush, “I was waiting for you to ask,” and he trailed behind her and she had to keep swatting his hands away and whisper,_ not yet, _until they got to her room and she let him put his hand all over her, and then his mouth._

.

She hurries out of the meeting before she could hear the others talking about her, because she knows they will, but Sansa calls for her before she can round the corner.

“Ser,” Sansa says simply, and Brienne stops in her tracks. She puts a hand on Oathkeeper, but lets it fall. She’s not going into a battle.

She bows her head to Sansa. “My lady.”

Sansa nods her acknowledgment. “May I have a word?”

Brienne had planned to go outside and spar until she was exhausted, or better yet, go to Jaime for a whole different kind of exhaustion, but she does the sensible thing and does as Sansa requests.

They go to the room that’s been set up for Sansa during her stay in the city. It’s furnished similarity to Brienne’s, except for a Stark banner that Sansa hung on the wall. It makes Brienne think of her own home, and how she has nothing to represent it. The only ornamentation she has is Lannister, his.

“Please, sit,” Sansa says. She takes a seat and rests against the back of the chair. It’s more of a command than an offering and Sansa can be quite intimating, so Brienne sits across from her.

“I am sorry for the route the conversation took earlier,” Sansa says. “However, that type of behavior is not unexpected from men. They are disappointing.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“But not Ser Jaime?”

Never — he is exactly who Brienne knows him to be.

“He isn’t a disappointment to me.” Unsaid: _he is to everyone else._

“I’m glad he...satisfies you,” Sansa says, and Brienne knows her choice of words are deliberate.

If Brienne knew better, she would think that Sansa sounds a bit jealous.

“There’s more to us than _that_.” Brienne hopes she doesn’t have to elaborate for Sansa to understand her meaning. While she does enjoy having sex with Jaime, there is more — she loved him before he bedded her. She loves him for the simple things, like: him taking tomatoes from her plate because she dislikes them, his mussed hair in the mornings, that he stands on his tip-toes to kiss her, that when he calls her things like _beast of a woman_ it doesn’t feel like an insult, his honor.

“I don’t know if I could ever trust a man,” Sansa says. “I would always been waiting for him to hurt me.”

She’s told Brienne what happened to her, detached, like she was telling the story of someone else. Brienne didn’t know what to say, but she tried to gather comforting words — Sansa had stopped her, said, _I’m not wanting a way for you to make it better, I want you to help me make sure it never happens again._

“That’s why we have knives, my lady,” Brienne says. Sansa’s mouth upturns slightly. Brienne shakes her head and continues, “But ser Jaime would never force himself upon me. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“But hasn’t he hurt you already?” Sansa asks, and Brienne is confused for a moment and then she remembers that not all pains bruise and bleed.

.

Jaime is asleep when she enters his room. It’s midday. The lion has turned into a lazy house cat.

His soldier instincts have lessened too — he doesn’t stir at the sound of the door closing, or at her presence at his bedside.

Or perhaps it’s because he feels safe.

He’s sleeping curled on his side, with his arm slung out, like he’s reaching out for someone (her?). He looks peaceful, almost.

And that infuriates her, for some reason — she was already angry, angry because people she respects don’t respect her, because they think of her as the woman who fucks the Kingslayer, because Jaime is inescapably sad, because his whispered sweet talk in her ear makes her _weak—_

He wakes as she strips off her clothes. He blinks at her, starts to say something — something smart ass probably, she knows that smirk that precedes it — but she flings her shirt to the floor and says, “if you don’t want to, I’ll do it myself.”

“Needy wench,” he says, snarls, but he kicks the blankets onto the floor — it’s winter still but it’s nowhere as cold as in the North, and he keeps a fire going — and then he wiggles off his smallclothes and tosses those to the floor too, and then he’s completely bare.

He’s gorgeous, really. He always is, even at his worst. He’s mostly healed — the burn had looked worse than it was and there’s only a pink scar that travels along his right collar bone, his bruised ribs are no longer sore, and he can put weight on his leg. He looks at her, quiet and waiting, his cock hardening and curving up towards his stomach.

“Well?” he asks, rude, and she closes the distance between them. He sits up and she knows he plans to lay on top of her but she doesn’t want _that_ — she puts a hand to his chest and pushes him back against the headboard. She’s a bit too forceful and his head bangs against the wood and he swears.

“Do you intend to fight me?” he asks, and she would like that — not with steel but with just their strength and their hands — three between them — and wrestle on the ground until the strongest wins, claims their prize. This is nearly like that — she straddles his lap, pins him down, kisses him hard, bites at his lip, and his only hand grasping at her hip.

He might have said a lot of horrible things to her to make her hate him, but at least he didn’t tell her that she was too horrid to fuck. She would’ve known it was a lie, not when he’s put his face so flush between her legs she worried he might suffocate and after his beard and mouth were wet from her and then he went inside her and they were face-to-face and he _looked_ at her—

He wants her now. Or he wants to have sex with her, at least. She grinds on him, feels him hard against her, and he makes a sound that’s nearly pained. He sneaks his hand down, between her breasts and over her stomach and he brushes his fingers through damp curls and strokes at the opening of her cunt. His eyes don’t leave hers, and he gets that smug look as he slips a finger between her folds and _damn him,_ damn him that he can make her give in to this baser desire, the one for him—

She shoves his hand away. Confusion passes over his face as well as little bit of fear, not unlike their first time when she stopped him from undressing her.

 _He’s still uncertain._ It’s endearing, in a way, but he’s bloody stupid to think that she doesn’t burn for him.

But she knows that doubt, that damage, wasn’t done by her.

She kisses him to make that sad expression disappear, and she puts her hand on him and his breath hitches and then she takes him inside her, sinking down on him all at once and the stretch aches her but it feels marvelous and he shudders all over and he says her name so, so honestly—

“Let me,” she says. She kisses above his eyebrow, where she cut him in their fight on the bridge. It seems like an eternity since that happened. A different life.

They fuck, roughly. They’re facing each other, her riding him and her hips canting forward. His right arm wraps around her waist, his stump pressing against her back, and his left hand grabs her ass, keeping her steady as she fucks herself on him. She’s going to have a hand-shaped bruise there. It might be sore when she sits. The thought delights her. She thinks of when others spit _Kingslayer’s whore_ at her she could pull down her trousers and show them the marks he leaves on her, earned like any of her battle wounds.

Like this, she’s sitting taller than him, and her breasts are in his face. He always pays attention to them, which is something she never thought a man would do with her. _They’re lovely_ , he told her when she questioned his interest, _let me admire them._ He does, now — he kisses the soft underside of them and licks her nipples, one then the other, laving at them and slobbering all over her but it’s so _good_ , he’s _good_ and she tries to tell him but she can’t form words, so she clenches on his cock and he moans so loudly it booms in her ear.

She wraps her arms around him and leans forward, which changes the angle of him inside her and that’s what she was searching for. She rocks on him so he thrusts deep inside her again and again and he’s saying something to her but she’s too damn sex-dazed to understand any language other than skin-on-skin. She hopes he lasts a bit longer but she knows he’s close — they’re both so slick and their thighs are wet with sweat as they move on each other and she feels him—it jerk inside her and she’s almost _almost_ right there, on the edge of her peak. She presses her chest against his face, a silent demand, because even if she could properly speak she doesn’t think she could say, _suck on my tits._

He does, for a moment — but then he grins at her and moves his mouth and bites her on the soft fleshy part. She gasps his name aloud and she bites him back — on his right arm where the muscle has grown softer from disuse, and he growls her name and she tingles all over and she holds onto him harder, this is like a fight, parry parry _thrust—_

She comes, dizzying and shouting — he laughs, lightly, nipping at her exposed neck — and her body instinctively seeks more, grinding down to feel every inch of his length inside her as she quivers around it, wants more—

“I’m _trying_ to give it to you, wench,” he mutters and she realizes she must have begged for it aloud. She’s past embarrassment, past shame, and she lets him hold onto her and he bucks his hips so hard she nearly falls off of him and then he closes his eyes and with a guttural moan he comes, spilling inside her.

His eyes find hers, after. She goes lax against him, spent, but he continues to thrust up in her, finishing it out.

“Jaime.” Her voice doesn’t sound like her own. He grunts, moves inside her hard and it feels so good she nearly cries.

He kisses her, sloppy, like an apology, when he slips out from her. They’re messy and sticky but neither can be bothered to move, so they just lie down, facing each other.

“What was that about?” Jaime asks. “Not that I’m complaining, but you were a bit aggressive. Be careful with my cock. It isn’t Valyrian steel.”

She blushes. She admits she was not entirely herself, but she was furious and she needed — she just needed.

“I was angry,” she says, simply.

“Are you still?”

“Not really.” Not in the way she was.

“Why were you angry?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He’s asking too many questions, and he’s liable to make her angry again.

He frowns. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

“I do.” She talks to him more than she has with any other person. Talking with people is misery, but Jaime isn’t people, to her.

“Not about _us,_ ” Jaime says. “You get bitey and snap at me, or ignore me and distract me with kisses and your hand on me instead.”

She doesn’t know what good talking would do. She’s afraid if she talks about it, then he would talk, then they would talk too much—

“She would do that,” he says and then adds, “Cersei,” like she wouldn’t know who he meant. “She never wanted to talk about us — the complication of us fucking, me fathering her bastards, why we were doing it to begin with. Any time I’d ask she’d tell me _shut up, Jaime_ or _you’re an idiot, Jaime_ and she would put her hand in my breeches to make sure I stayed quiet and didn’t ruin her fantasy. The few times we did talk about those things, we would argue. Or more like, she would yell at me and I would tune her out. She might have slapped me a few times.”

By the cavalier way he says it, she knows it bothers him, because he only jokes about the things that do — like the self-deprecating comments about his missing hand, or how we wears slander of _Kingslayer_ like an ill- fitting coat.

She doesn’t want to be like Cersei. She knows she isn’t, she isn’t beautiful like his twin was, but she’s different beyond appearance. She hopes.

“What do you want to talk about?” She asks it slow, measured. The sun is setting and the light makes his skin glow golden.

“Why were you angry?” He tucks her hair behind her ear, kisses the delicate shell of it and he’s being so, _so_ sweet—

“Why didn’t you ever try to take advantage of me?”

She doesn’t know why she asks it. It isn’t something she ever feared he’d do. He is the only man who respects her, who she trusts. But he is a man, and he has hurt her in other ways—

“Why would you even _think_ of that?” His voice sounds broken, and he looks horrified. It makes her glad, for some reason.

“Is it because I’m too ugly?” she asks, although she knows a woman doesn’t have to be attractive for a man to do that — men have threatened to do it in the same breath they called her the ugliest bitch they’ve ever seen.

Jaime sits up. Brienne does, too; she pulls the blanket over their laps, covering them.

“You’re angry because I didn’t try to rape you?” He laughs, short. “Why would I need to take it when you spread your legs and present your cunt to me every night?”

“Don’t be rude. You do that when you want to avoid talking about something.” She catches his chin so he can’t look away from her, retreat further. “Why didn’t you? It should be a simple question.”

She sees him thinking, and she wants to punch him because he wanted to talk so badly and now he won’t — but then he takes a deep breath, and talks, and talks—

“When first met, I did think you were too ugly to fuck, but that wasn’t something I thought of — not until we bathed together and my cock, well, it had ideas and but I thought it was just because it had been so long since I’d been with—been with a woman. But from the first time we met I found you _fascinating_ and I wanted to keep looking at you, and I don’t know when it happened but then I didn’t think you were so terribly ugly, you were just — you were just _Brienne._ ”

“Jaime—”

“And then when we were apart, and I thought of you constantly. I prayed for your safety and I never pray. I thought of your face and your gorgeous eyes and I thought of how strong you are, what it felt like for you to hold me when I collapsed in that bath, and then I started to think of what it would feel like if you held me in a different way. Would it would feel like if I held you, if you let me. I wondered what you’d do if I kissed you, if your face would turn all pink like it does when you’re embarrassed — yes, like it is right now — and then I became really invested with the thought of you moaning in pleasure under me and begging for more but I didn’t want to dishonor you but gods, I wanted you, I thought about you constantly, I _dreamed_ of you, and when I saw you in Riverrun I knew that I — that I wanted you and when I saw you at the dragon pit I wanted you and every time after but I couldn’t think about it too much because I would have kissed you in front of everyone because you are so lovely and...”

Brienne kisses him, then. Just a press of her lips to his. He trembles and turns away. She puts her hands to the side of his face and kisses him again, slow, and with meaning, like she can make up for all those times he wanted to kiss her but didn’t.

“I would never hurt you,” he mumbles. “I’ve never thought of — of doing that to you. To anyone. When I was in Aerys’ guard I heard — he would force himself on his queen and I had to stand outside and listen to her cry and scream for help, and I couldn’t do anything, and some times I think about how you screamed when those men took you away but you fought, you would have let them kill you before they got inside you—”

She cuts off his rambling. “You saved me,” she says, and she touches his right arm. It flinches. “I’ve told you: you’re a good man.”

He doesn’t argue it, this time, but he brushes it off. “I did what any knight should’ve done. You’re congratulating me because I didn’t rape you? I thought you had higher standards. Obviously not, because you chose me.”

“Jaime.” She doesn’t think he knows that she chose him a long time ago, and she doesn’t think he knows what it meant for him to lie to keep her unharmed when it didn’t benefit him at all, and he doesn’t know that she might have started loving him when he came back to her and jumped in that bear pit unarmed and one-handed, when she thought she was going to die hearing men laughing at her—

“I wouldn’t want it from you if you didn’t want to have me.”

“I want it from you,” she says, and she kisses him again, deeper, mumbles against his lips, “and I want to give it to you, too.”

He frowns, his expression unreadable.

“With Cersei,” he says, “she was more about receiving than giving. She gave when she wanted something, or when I asked very nicely, but she was always... Sometimes I guess I didn’t want to — you know — but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I never denied her. I couldn’t. I let her — I let her take what she wanted.”

Her mouth goes dry. “What do you mean?”

“Must I explain it? She used sex against me, she used it as a weapon. I loved her and I guess she loved me, in some fashion, but she used me...”

She sees him going away, and she won’t let him leave her again. She holds his hand in one of hers and then his stump in her other and he makes a sound in his throat that nearly makes her cry.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from that,” she says.

“From what?”

“Like...when you helped me. When those men kept us prisoner, and they were going to have their way with me but you spoke out for me and stopped them— ”

“It’s _not_ the same.”

“But isn’t it, in a way? You said you didn’t always want it—”

“It’s not the same!”

She sighs. He won’t admit it, but _she’s_ dead and still continues to hurt him.

“Your sister was terrible and didn’t deserve you, she controlled you and I’m so sorry you didn’t realize until it was too late—”

“Stop!” Jaime jerks away from her, like he’s been scalded, and wraps his arms around himself. “Stop pretending like you know everything because you don’t fucking know anything about this. I fucked my sister and we were the worst part of each other but now she’s dead and that’s all, so just shut up about it.”

Brienne looks at him. He turns away, lies down with his back to her.

She knows when she isn’t wanted.

So, she quietly dresses and leaves without saying anything else.

.

 _Father,_ she writes, but crosses through it and instead writes, _Papa—_

_The wars are over. Peace is on the horizon and my oath to the Starks is fulfilled. There is nothing left for me here. I should come home._

 

_I am so tired of fighting._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took many things from bluecarrot, including “and that’s why we have knives”. :)


	6. Jaime III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He swore he would never hurt her again, but he has.

Three days have passed when Jaime realizes two things:

— Brienne holds a grudge stronger than he does,

— and she isn’t coming back to see him.

He shouldn’t have yelled at her. She was wrong — it wasn’t how he implied, he wasn’t — he _wanted_ it, he never said no, he could have stopped Cersei if he truly wanted to — but he can’t fault Brienne because he knows she has a sensitive heart, especially when it involves him.

He swore he would never hurt her again, but he has.

But she must not entirely forget about him, because she doesn’t let him starve. She sends Podrick with his meals and he all but has to beg the boy for news about her. Pod doesn’t respond — probably ordered not to by his lady ser — but Jaime is good at wearing people down and Pod tells him, flippantly, “She has better things to do than visit _you._ ”

Jaime half expects Pod to spit in his soup. Maybe he has already. He’s fiercely protective of Brienne.

He eyes Widow’s Wail on Pod’s hip. He has the feeling of his right hand twitching to have it back, that half of a whole he shares with Brienne.

Pod notices him looking. “I told you I’d return it to you when you’re ready.”

 _I’ll never be ready_ , Jaime thinks.

.

After another night of self-pity he decides _enough_ — if she won’t come to him, he’ll go to her. She’s supposed to be helping him, she said she was, but one minor argument is going to run her off? He’s done much worse things.

He soon realizes that she had been right when she tried to force him to be more active. But like the stubborn idiot he is, he had refused, and only got out of bed to piss or go across the small room to look out the window or to tend the fire. His body is weak, tired, useless and his mind is dull as a wooden sword and dark as the unending night, and all he wants to do is sleep and sleep and sleep.

He dresses, wearing one of Brienne's tunics and her trousers and her socks and a pair of her boots that are a bit too snug in the toes. The only thing that isn’t hers is a jacket that’s warm and fits him well, which he suspects she took from an abandoned shop. He’s exhausted by the time he’s fully dressed and he considers lying back down, but that’s giving up and he doesn’t run away from a fight and Brienne doesn’t either and he won’t let her.

He looks at his false hand that rests on the table. He hasn’t worn it since the city burned. He woke up without it and hasn’t bothered to put it back on. It was nothing but a hinderance — it got him captured, because only one idiot has a golden hand. Gold was a senseless material to use, anyway. It’s heavy and cumbersome and too flashy and for as rich as it is, gold is a weak metal — it’s dented and scratched from the same damage that bruised and broke his body. He hates the thing and he hates that it makes him feel less self-conscious of his image, but he’d rather people stare at it rather than his mutilated arm.

However, he has no need to wear it with Brienne. She sees past that ornamentation, and she doesn’t think of his disability as unsightly. The first time they laid together she said, _“it’s okay,”_ and she kissed him sweetly as she unfastened the straps that held the hand on, and then she kissed his stumped wrist where it was sore and the skin was chafed and he trembled like a fool but he shouldn’t have been afraid. She was the only one who understood — she was there when he lost his hand, she heard him scream and saw him cry and she kept him from dying when he wanted to rot away with his flesh.

He leaves the ugly thing where it lay, and leaves the room with his sleeve hanging loose over his arm.

.

He has to stop to rest a few times and he nearly falls down the stairs once, but he makes it out of the tower. He limps. He tells himself it’s only temporary. He won’t let it be anything other.

He's in the map room. He thinks of when Cersei had it commissioned, her looking down on the painting like she conquered the lands instead of merely stealing them with a lot of manipulation and a little bit of luck.

 _We could rule together,_ she told him. _The entire world_. At one point in his life he would’ve wanted nothing more but when she said it with a crown on her head, he was _terrified._

A crashing sound disrupts him from his memory. He steps behind a column and peers around, looking for some unseen danger. Most people would hurt him, or at the very least, not help him, and he’s gone and pissed off the one person who _would_ help him. His pulse climbs when he realizes he isn’t armed.

But it’s only Arya Stark and that bastard of Robert Baratheon sparring. She’s beating the newly named lord badly. Jaime almost feels sorry for the boy. He has the strength Robert had in his youth, but none of the training to hone his skills into something more than blindly swinging his weapon.

Arya whacks Gendry behind the knees and he goes down. She smiles, triumphant, but then she looks across the room and makes direct eye contact with Jaime.

Jaime hides behind the column. He doesn’t want to talk to them. Maybe they care for him so little they’ll ignore him. Or maybe he’s a ghost and nobody sees him at all.

“Hey, Lannister!”

No such luck.

He steps into the open. “Lady Stark.”

Arya crosses her arms. “I’m no lady.”

Jaime can’t help smile. He imagines she’s like Brienne was at her age, except much shorter and her eyes aren’t as pretty. And isn’t as blatantly rude.

Arya glares at him. “Why are creeping around?”

“I’m not _creeping,_ ” Jaime says. “I’m looking for ser Brienne.”

If looks could kill, Jaime would be dead.

“Go on,” the young wolf tells Gendry. He starts to protest but she grabs him by he lapels and drags him in for a kiss. Jaime averts his eyes, uncomfortable at the young couple’s flagrant affection.

“I’ll see you later,” she says. Gendry nods, and walks away, a bit dazed. Arya has a small smile until he’s gone, and then she turns to Jaime.

“I’ll tell you where she is if you can beat me.” She holds out a wooden sword for him.

Jaime laughs. He hopes it comes off as dismissive because he’s actually concerned that he _can’t_ beat her. He hasn’t picked up a sword in weeks and weeks, and Brienne had told him that Arya was a skilled opponent and when they sparred it ended in draw, and he can’t beat Brienne nine times out of ten on a good day, so.

“Come on. One kingslayer to another.” She grins. “I’ve never fought another who favors their left hand.”

“I only have one to choose from,” he says, and damn her, damn _all_ the Starks, and he grabs the offered weapon and takes first strike.

He quickly realizes that he is going to lose, embarrassingly. She doesn’t fight like a Westerosi — he recognizes the Braavos style from the swordsmen who would come from the Free Cities to King’s Landing. She dodges his blows before he can land them and she slips out of his reach just when he thinks he has her. He’s tired and his leg hurts but it’s exhilarating to fight, he feels _alive_ , and he realizes he’s having _fun_ — something he hasn’t felt in months other than when he’s with Brienne.

It’s unusual to spar with someone who also uses their left hand; it catches him off guard a few times, him expecting the attack to come from the right. He does well blocking and countering her moves, but she’s faster and younger and eventually she gets a good smack to his back.

“You fight like a cripple,” she says, haughty. She spins, but he manages to knock her next hit out of the way. She looks pleased, like he’s _learning_ , and he wants to tell her _I was winning fights against men better than you when you were nothing more than a squirt in Ned Stark’s balls._

“I’ve been unwell,” Jaime says. “A building fell on me.”

“That doesn’t make you forget how to fight.” She ducks when he swings his sword, and she hits him again. “You leave your entire right side open. It’s a miracle you haven’t been killed.”

“I don’t have a fucking _right_ hand.”

“So? I trained while I was blind and I was still more capable than you.”

He doesn’t understand what she means. There’s a lot about her he doesn’t understand, like the rumors that she can steal a person’s face and wear it as her own. But she’s irritating and he really wants to best her and tone down that Stark arrogance — he hits her elbow and she swears so vile it could challenge Bronn’s dirty mouth. He thinks he has her and he isn’t going to be beaten down by a teenager, but then she tosses her wooden sword to her right hand and knocks his out of his grip, disarming him.

He’s too shocked to be angry. “Dirty trick."

“That’s how I killed the Night King.” She points her weapon at his neck. “Why did you make Brienne upset?”

“I haven’t,” he lies.

She presses the blunt edge harder against his throat.

He tries again. “It doesn’t concern you.”

“It does, you bloody idiot,” she shouts, and she smacks his shoulder, and while it doesn’t really hurt it’s annoying, “—because whatever you did made her want to go home!”

His stomach drops to the floor, to the center of the world. “What?”

“Brienne is going to _leave_ , and it’s your fault!”

“Stop hitting me!”

Jaime thinks she’s going to hit him again, but she just throws her weapon on the floor.

“What did she say to you?” Jaime asks, quiet.

“Not much,” Arya says. “Yesterday she came to my sister, asking if she could be released from her vow. Sansa agreed, since all the living Starks are together and Winterfell is ours.”

 _She’s leaving me,_ he thinks. He keeps messing up, she’ll never trust him, he’s stupid _stupid_ —

“She’s in the armory.” Arya must pity him because her voice is kinder. “Don’t fuck it up, Lannister.”

“I make no promises.”

He shouldn’t, since he keeps breaking them.

.

Arya was true — Brienne is in the armory. She’s alone and busy sorting through shields, and doesn’t notice he’s in the doorway. He watches her for a moment, admiring her legs as she moves and where her neck is damp with sweat.

“Brienne.”

She turns towards him, holding a shield to her chest. Worry takes over her face — _how are you here? are you okay?_ — but then forces her mouth into a frown.

He rushes over to her and says what’s on his mind and his heart, “It wasn’t like how I said, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I should let you go home and never see my face again but I love you too much, I need you, I’m sorry I hurt you I’m sorry I keep hurting you but I don’t know how not to stop, I was raised on hurt and I was told it was love but it was hurt too, she didn’t—she didn’t do what you think, I let her, I didn’t always want it but I let her—”

“Jaime.” She touches his cheek, gentle. He turns his head and kisses her palm.

“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. Stop treating me like I’m fragile.”

“Should I hit you, ser?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Why not? You said you let her do those things to you, that you didn’t refuse them.”

“Brienne—”

“I could hit you. Bring my hand across your face, break your jaw. If you please.”

“You aren’t—”

“Her?”

He kisses her. Stops her words and his too because he doesn’t want to argue, he wants affection, to be touched, wanted in return.

They don’t bother to leave the armory. He slides his hand down the front of her trousers, curves over the mound of her cunt. She lets out an exhale and her eyes flutter shut and she sways slightly, into his body.

 _She wants me,_ he thinks. _She isn’t just letting me._

_She isn’t using me._

It’s a horrible thought, but he has to know.

“Brienne, stop, wait—”

She could overpower him if she wanted. She’s stronger and he wouldn’t ever say _no_ to her either. But her fingers still where they had been undoing his laces, quickly retract, and her arms fall to her sides. He withdraws his hand from her, searches her face for disappointment, anger, resentment — but he finds only understanding.

“Thank you,” he says and he wraps his right arm around her waist and pulls her close, buries his nose into her neck, against the long-healed scars there. “Thank you.”

“What for?” she asks, her tone going deeper when he puts a leg between hers, spreading hers open.

“For being you.” He kisses a trail from her neck up to behind her ear, where he knows she’s ticklish. “You’re perfect.”

“Jai- _me_ —”

“Except it might be nice if you wore women’s clothes more often.” He sorely misses his other hand, having to decide between putting fingers in her or taking the time to remove her trousers.

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t mean to offend you, ser,” Jaime huffs. “It would just be a little more convenient to fuck you if all I had to do is lift your skirts.”

“Then it means you have to work for it,” Brienne says, smug.

“Oh, I will.” Jaime pushes her forward, them staggering back to the wall. She lets out a throaty growl and she grabs his hips and turns them and presses him so he's against the wall, attacks his neck with biting kisses while she undoes his pants — what a good wench, his lady. He puts his mouth to hers and they kiss and they spring apart for her to shove his trousers to his knees and then they kiss again. His blood is singing and he’s so happy to be alive — if all his suffering was necessary to come to this, it was worth it.

“Jaime?”

He opens his eyes. He hadn’t realized he closed them, somewhere between her pressing him against the wall and her putting her hand on his cock. For a moment he’s lost, but then calm blue eyes steady him and it’s Brienne. His knight. Not _her_ , her hair is a different blonde and she’s bigger and Cersei would never have dirt on her nose like Brienne has right now.

“Tell me what you want,” Brienne says and he says, “you, I only want you— ”

She rids herself of her trousers _finally_ , wiggling them down her long legs but they get caught around her ankles and she has to kick off her boots before she steps out of them. She doesn’t delay —she hooks her leg over his hip and parts for him and she slides him into her warm center and all he can do is grip her forearm and stifle a moan into her neck. She smells like leather and dirt and sweat — she must have been working all morning, here with steel and other sharp things.

Even though he’s in her, she’s taking _him_. She has his body pinned to the wall with hers but he doesn’t feel trapped but supported. She holds his ass keeping him in place while she grinds against him, pants hot into his ear, says, _mine._

.

He doesn’t find the courage to ask her until after a good bath and they get to her room, undressed again and under the furs. She lays on her back and him on his side wrapped around her, resting his head on her chest. They haven’t fucked again — he’s too tired and honestly, he likes this causal intimacy, where they can touch with no purpose other than comforting the other.

He shouldn’t say anything to ruin the good moment, but he must know—

“Do you really intend to go home?”

For a moment, her fingers still where she threads through his hair, but he makes a whiney sound and she continues.

“Who told you?”

“Arya,” he mumbles. “She said it was my fault. She was quite upset with me. That’s where I got all these fresh bruises from. Beat on me with sparring sword.”

“Oh, poor baby.” She doesn’t even try to sound sympathetic.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he says. “Are you going back to Tarth?”

She quiet for too long, and her expression is unreadable; he thinks she’s being withholding on purpose. He nips at the swell of her breast, retaliating. She makes a _harrumph_ noise but she keeps petting his hair.

“What if I do go home?” she asks, challenging.

“I’ll be very sad,” he says. “I’ll walk into the sea, trying to follow you.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. You could take a ship.”

Jaime frowns. “Would you want me there? I thought you were leaving because of me.”

He feels her chest rise and fall with a sigh.

“It wasn’t only because of our argument,” she says. “It’s...everyone. Nobody respects me.”

He raises up on his elbow. “Who do I have to kill?”

She puts a hand on his back so he settles back down.

“It’s — it’s nothing.” Her voice is as quiet as she is tall. “I should be glad anyone thinks I’m worth including at all.”

“Brienne, don’t do that horrible womanly thing where you bring something up and then refuse to talk about it.”

She glares at him but then he says softer, “Please?”

“The representatives of the regions,” she says, “they were...discourteous, and while I should be used to it, I thought it would be different, after everything.”

“What did they say?” It must’ve been something other than the usual ridicule that’s thrown at her — ugly, freakish, beast — because she’s used to that, and he’s never seen her this affected by another’s insults.

“They — oh, it was _terrible,_ Jaime.” She squeezes her eyes shut as though she could blot out the memory, and then she opens them and looks at him, all blue. “They see me as an anomaly. Yes, I’m gifted with a sword but it still comes down to what’s between my legs. They’re confused—awed that I’m fuckable, that you’re fucking me, that you chose me over Cer-your sister. And they dishonored you, too. They asked me about the length of your manhood and — it isn’t funny!”

Jaime bites down on a laugh. “Let them speculate. You’re the only woman who will ever know the truth. I’m thankful I have a big woman for my big—”

“Jaime!”

Dismissing the humor, he must confront his guilt. It sits in his chest and rises in his throat like bile, burning, from the inside out.

“I never wanted you to suffer because of me, but you’ve had nothing but pain.”

“Stop those lies, Jaime Lannister. You are not something to be simply tolerated,” and she kisses him as if to prove it. “They were ragging on me as their way of fellowship, like I am one of the guys, but while I am a knight I’m still a _lady_.” She blushes furiously. “Their jokes mean to make me like them but it only highlights the difference. That I’m a woman and they see my worth as based on a man’s desire for me.”

“Men are idiots.” His lady is sculpted from the Warrior but he knows of her girlish wishes to dance and be wooed. “You know I don’t think of you that way, right?”

“Jaime,” she says, very serious, “you’re the only man — only person who’s treated me like I could be both a knight and a lady. Even my father...”

Her voice trials off and Jaime wants to say, _tell me about him,_ because he wants to know everything of her, but she flees from it, like she does anything that hurts her.

“You called me _lady_ without it sounding like a joke and you gave me a priceless sword, you trusted me to be your commander in battle, and when you — when you _fuck_ me you’re kind and tell me I’m beautiful even though I’m not.”

“Are we going to argue about that again?”

She sighs. “It doesn’t matter. They respect my abilities when they want me on the front line, but then they say you only knighted me because you wanted to bed me.”

“Who said that?”

“Nobody,” she admits, quietly. “But I know they think it.”

 _Maybe she thinks it,_ too.

“I’ll fight anyone who doesn’t think you earned your knighthood on your merit and your abundance of honor,” he says. “Even if I have to fight you to believe it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I swear on my honor that my intensions were pure. If I knighted you because I wanted to get in you, I would’ve bedded you on the eve of battle right after I did it, but I thought that I was going to die and I wanted you to know that I loved and respected you more than I wanted you under me.”

“I know,” she says, and he believes her.

It isn’t until Brienne is asleep and curled against his back that he realizes she didn’t say if she is going home.

.

_“How dare she?” Cersei said once they were alone. “That blonde bitch.”_

_She knocked her goblet onto the floor, and Jaime picked it up, patient._

_“The Targaryen girl?” he asked. He was careful not to say_ queen _because some long-buried compulsion had tickled at the back of his knee to bend it, she looked so much like Rhaegar—_

_“Your big, ugly knight,” Cersei spat, and no, he wanted to keep Brienne safe — but he knew that he had looked at her too long, and Cersei had noticed._

_“I noticed she has your sword,” she said. “I thought you lost it, but you gave it to her. What really happened between you two in the Riverlands?”_

_“I told you,” Jaime replied, although, he didn’t tell her much of it at all — Brienne was to bring him back to King’s Landing, to her, but they were captured, and then they cut off his hand for running his mouth and then they helped each other survive, the end. “I gave Lady Brienne the sword because she deserved it.”_

_“She must be brave to have the audacity to flaunt Lannister gold.” Cersei smiled, that horrible one that makes his blood run cold. “Unless you gave her a different idea. Tell me, brother — did you fuck her before or after you lost your hand?”_

_“What?” He responded too soon, suspicious. “We haven’t. You know it’s only you.”_

_“But you want to.”_

_He forced a laugh. “Please. Have you seen her?” he said, knowing it was what Cersei wanted to hear. He bit down on his tongue so he wouldn’t say more. He wondered what Cersei would say if he told her that he knew Brienne had freckles in places the sun doesn’t touch and that she held him gentler than anyone had ever touched him and that he was only alive because of her and that he dreams of her constantly, and yes he does want her—_

_“She wants you to fuck her,” Cersei said. “How dare she _touch_ you—”_

_“Leave her alone.” His voice cracked. “Brienne isn’t a threat.”_

_“I didn’t say she was.” Cersei stepped closer to him, held his chin so he looked at her. Her nails dug into his skin. “But hopefully she doesn’t get in my way. You know what happens to people who do.”_

_Wildfire. Burning. He thought of Cersei smiling triumphant while Brienne boils in her armor that he gave her and he tries to save her but he’s chained and he begs Cersei to help but she lets Brienne die and it’s his fault._

_He hoped Brienne was far away, but he wasn’t sure if she could ever escape his sister’s wrath. Cersei would destroy anything to get what she wants._

_“She doesn’t matter,” he said, and he pulled Cersei close, and shut off that worry in his head so she wouldn’t see it._

_He didn’t do it well enough._

_“She’s coming between us.” She kissed his neck and her teeth scraped his skin, like an animal checking for another’s scent. “I've killed others who tried to keep our family apart. Why wouldn’t I do the same to this ugly cunt you’re so fond of?”_

_Fond. He supposed he was. He wasn’t so sure about ugly anymore._

_“Maybe I should have you do it,” Cersei whispered. “You’d have to if I ordered it. Have you take your sword back and gut her.”_

_Did love make him so blind, to not have seen this? He killed one tyrant while another kept him in her bed._

_She raised her hand and he did not flinch — he stopped flinching many years ago — but she placed it against his cheek._

_“Worry not. I know you’re sympathetic to unfortunate things,” she said. “You would never leave me. It’s only us. You’re loyal.”_

_Fuck loyalty._

_“I haven’t tended to you in a while. Let me—”_

_And she got down on her knees and he let her, let her._

.

They didn’t bother being discreet, so people were bound to talk. Even in Winterfell, they didn’t hide that they slept in the same room every night. Nobody cared then — they acknowledged their coupling as though it were a fact — but Jaime thinks it’s because the North is different, and incredibly, he finds himself missing the frozen place.

He thinks of shivering — he didn’t have proper Northern clothing — and then of warmth.

_“Can’t have you freeze to death because you were too stubborn to ask for help,” Brienne said, and placed a heavy fur-lined cloak around his shoulders._

_“I know of other ways to keep me warm,” he said, and he kissed her in the open air where anyone could see and she let out a small surprised sound but she kissed him back and he was so, so warm—_

People don’t understand them and that’s fine — nobody needs to except them — but he doesn’t want her diminished to just the role of his lover. That bloody song hasn’t done them any favors — when he finds out who started it he’s going to have some choice words with them and his sword — and the gossip doesn’t help either. He wants to go and tell those idiots on the council what he thinks about them, but Brienne strongly objects.

“I will not have you defend me.”

“How is it any different than standing at your side in battle?” he counters. She rolls her eyes but he does not relent. “You spoke up for me when I needed someone to defend me.”

“That was different. That was for your life. This would be because my _feelings_ are hurt.” She scowls, like admitting to having feelings is disgusting.

He should let her take charge of her own battle — she wants to ignore it because she thinks addressing the problem will make it worse. She’s probably right.

He does what he wants anyway.

Brienne is absolutely furious when he enters the room. She stands and starts, “J—” before she catches herself and says, “Ser Jaime.”

“It’s awfully boring to be alone all day, so I thought I would join the fun.” He smiles. “If that’s alright with all of you.”

The lords and ladies of the realm exchanges glances, giving him as much regard as they would unbuttered bread.

“It’s fine with me,” Sansa says, and everyone mumbles in agreement with her. Jaime doesn’t know why they just don’t crown her queen and be done with it. She has all the regality of a queen and the compassion of a great one. He wishes Cersei were here to see her. He knows she terrorized Sansa, but he thinks that she would be proud of the girl, maybe.

Catelyn Stark definitely would.

He sits next to Tyrion. Brienne is across from them; she lowers back into her seat and glowers at him.

Tyrion leans, mutters, “It seems as though you’ll have only your hand to entertain yourself tonight.”

Jaime shoves at him.

He came here with the intension to keep others from speaking badly to Brienne, but he is interested in the future the council is planning. Brienne is reticent and doesn’t want to be involved, and Tyrion would rather drink with him. It turns out that as a group, they haven’t decided on much. They've agreed to pool their resources to fund rebuilding, but they cannot agree on a leader for their kingdom.

Perhaps they are afraid to have another bad one. Jaime should choose, since he has experience — he killed one king, fathered two, and his loversister was queen.

But he isn’t sure who would be the best choice. Tyrion asks Jon Snow, “are you _sure_ you don’t want it?” and Snow quickly rejects the idea, and looks ill at the very thought of it. The guy doesn’t look well — more gloomy than usual, if possible. Killing Daenerys, his queen, obviously hasn’t left him the same. Jaime feels a sort of kinship with him, having to kill those they were sworn to protect because they knew it was the right thing to do, knowing that doing so would kill a little part inside them. Although, Snow’s situation is worse, because Jaime had no affection for Aerys. A part of him wonders if he could have killed Cersei, if he had to.

The meeting continues; Edmure Tully suggests _himself_ as king, simply on the basis that he’s older than most of the alternatives. Jaime gets the idea that it’s something he’s brought up before because Sansa just sighs and says, “uncle, please,” and Edmure sits down meekly. Tarly asks if there actually needs to be a king, which is gets a good laugh. Bran Stark who isn’t Bran Stark is also considered as king, but the boy says, “I don’t think that is my path this time,” and it’s so ominous that everyone quickly directs attention elsewhere.

“Do you want it, Kingslayer?” Bronn asks. “You’d be next in line after your sister’s reign.”

“Which she stole,” Jaime says, “and I’d rather lose my other hand than be king.”

He catches Brienne’s eyes. She hasn’t said anything since he walked into the room. She was right; nobody has bothered to ask her opinion of anything, where everyone else has blathered on at length, even young lord Arryn, who has grown up quite a bit since he left his mother’s teat.

“Although, I do have a proposition,” Jaime says, first looking at the Brienne and seeing her panic rise because he knows she knows that he’s about to do something stupid, and then he looks to the others. “Reconstruct the surrounding of Blackwater Bay so it is better defended, and then increase our naval fleet immediately in case Daenerys’ allies from the east seek revenge.”

“That’s a marvelous idea,” Snow says, then Tyrion, and everyone else.

“It is a good idea, but it isn’t mine,” Jaime says, and then gestures across the table. “You should direct your praise to Ser Brienne. It is her brilliance.”

She had told him a week ago that she tried to propose it but the council shot it down, told her she was being _dramatic_ and it wouldn’t help, forgetting that she grew up on an island that constantly — and successfully — fended off pirates.

Quiet, then from Snow: “Thank you, ser Brienne. We will implement these improvements to the city.”

Brienne nods, courteously.

There. She got her acknowledgement. He should let it be—

“You should listen to her more,” he says, and he can feel Brienne flushing, but he really doesn’t know how to shut his mouth, does he? “She is honorable and just and unparalleled as a knight, it doesn’t matter who she has in her bed— ”

“I don’t think anyone debates my ability,” Brienne says, cutting him off. “Does anyone wish to fight me and see how I earned the title?”

The only sound is the wind — nobody dares to speak and risk injury.

“Anyway,” Tyrion says, “on the matter of relocation of the displaced smallfolk...”

Jaime doesn’t say anything else — Brienne looks at him like she wants to push him in the mud, and the less he says, the less reason she has to be mad at him. He needn’t say anything anyway. The others listen when she speaks and they don’t tease her at all. Her method was simple and effective and much better than what he would have done.

.

Brienne brushes by him after the meeting, her shoulder colliding with his and nearly knocking him down.

“Can’t say you didn’t deserve that.”

Jaime looks down at Tyrion. He’s too pleased at his misfortune.

“Do you have anything to drink?” Jaime asks, and Tyrion replies, “Plenty.”

And several...many cups of wine later, Jaime is sprawled out on Tyrion’s bed, very drunk and waxing poetic about his lady love.

“She’s beautiful, you know.”

“Debatable,” says Tyrion. “But your sexual preferences have always been questionable.”

“Hush.” He waves his hand at his brother. “You’re speaking badly of the woman I love.” He frowns. “Although I’m not sure if she loves me anymore.”

“If you don’t know she is hopelessly in love with you, then you really are stupid.”

He doesn’t disagree.

He must fall asleep not much later because he wakes up from a dreamless sleep to a knocking on the door. It takes a moment to place himself — Tyrion is snoring next to him and they’re laying on top of the blankets — but then he remembers, and then he knows who’s at the door, the knock is polite—

“You were supposed to follow me and argue with me,” Brienne says. She’s been drinking too — she smells like wine and lust — and her hair is messy, like she’s been running her hand through it, and her eyes heavy-lidded.

“Was I?” Jaime leans against the doorframe, partly to steady himself, partly to appear nonchalant. “What else was I supposed to do, ser?”

“Apologize for being the most insufferably obstinate man alive and swear you won’t interfere when I’ve asked you not to.”

“Sorry, I can’t promise that, especially when my lady’s honor is in question.”

“See? Horribly obstinate,” she says but smiles, biting her lip like she’s trying to keep herself from it. “However, it was...chivalrous of you to speak on my behalf. Perhaps I’m resistant because I’m not used to someone being kind to me. When people have been nice to me, it’s been in jest.”

“Then we’ll have to practice,” Jaime says. “I’ll be good to you and you’ll accept that you deserve it.”

“You deserve kindness too,” she says, and she kisses him clumsily, fervent. She sighs against his mouth like she has hunger that’s finally been sated and he knows the feeling, that he can’t be too long without her.

“Want you, now,” she says, hot and sharp against his ear.

“Not here.” He jerks his head inside the room, where Tyrion lies sleep-drunk in the middle of the bed. “My brother—”

Brienne lets out a very unladylike huff and she grabs his hand and pulls him so suddenly that he stumbles forward. She giggles at him, trilling and uncontained and something he’s only heard when she’s alone and naked with him. He loves it and he tells her so, but she just tells him to _shush_ and shuts Tyrion’s door and then she hooks her arm in his and directs them towards her room and when they’re alone and safe, she pushes him on her bed and straddles his hips.

“Practice with me, ser."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> too bad there aren’t therapists in Westeros
> 
> yes, the part following “oh, I will” is based off of their fight in storm of swords. I wrote his reply and then I was like, wait, he’s said that before, and then I went and looked it up and well! the fight scene was written like fucking already, so.


	7. Brienne IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne is stubborn.

* * *

The wind turns colder still, and the same wind brings her father’s letter: _come home, my child, if your journey is done._

On the back of the same paper she writes _no_ and sends it away.

There is no use to go home. She wrote the letter in one of those rare moments where she didn’t think, crying to her father like a child, _nobody liiiiikes me._ The truth is, she will be disrespected in Tarth as much as in Kings Landing — if not more.

And she doesn’t know how she could ask Jaime to go home, with her.

.

_“You broke his collarbone.”_

_“And two of his ribs,” Brienne said. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smirking. “And his pride.”_

_She hoped everyone will know that Ser Humfrey was beaten down by a teenage girl. That he cried and called her_ bitch _and said,_ I will never marry you, _and she said,_ good.

_Lord Selwyn, Evenstar, sighed and slumped in his chair._

_“Smugness is not an attractive quality,” he said. Brienne wanted to say that it didn’t matter because she was already ugly, but it upset her father when she spoke badly of herself, so she did not._

_Instead: “Would you have me married to someone who doesn’t respect me for who I am?”_

_“You don’t make it easy, child.”_

_“They,” she said, spitting the word, “don’t make it easy. Men. They act as though they are so tough, but their feelings are so delicate — no offense, father, I don’t include you in this.”_

_“Of course not.”_

_“But insult a man and it’s as bad as killing them, and gods, some are more vain than women—”_

_He laughed. Not in the horrible way all other men laugh at her, but as her father, who loves her._

_“One day, you’ll meet someone who likes you for your uniqueness—” She scoffed, cutting him off, but he continued, “and if he doesn’t, he will in time. That is how relationships are. You’re so young, your head still full of songs.”_

_“Young, but old enough to be married off.”_

_“You don’t want to marry?”_

_Brienne thought she did at one time, she dreamed of marrying a handsome lord — maybe even a prince! — and dancing in lovely gowns and everyone would compliment her._

_But then she grew up._

_“I know I must,” she said, simply. “But I have one condition. He must beat me in combat.”_

_“My dear, that would be almost no one.”_

That is the point, _she thinks, but does not voice it._

_“I know of a few,” her father said. “Prince Martell could. Ser Barristan Selmy. The Kingslayer — I hear he is very pretty.”_

_“Don’t be ridiculous.” However, she was a little ashamed to admit she believes she could beat any of those men, if given the chance._

_“My apologies. I didn’t know you were being logical.”_

_“I mean it,” she said, and she did. Her father understood, or perhaps he just gave up on her. Either way, there were no more engagements, and he made her double her training._

.

She has a fantasy she thinks of often: her younger and Jaime younger too, still golden and two-handed. She thinks of him coming to Tarth because he heard there was someone more stubborn than him, and he wanted to fight her because he wanted a challenge. He would win, of course, or maybe she would let him win — either way, he would _respect_ her and he would say in that arrogant tone that makes her want to punch him as much kiss him, “now you have to marry me,” and she would.

But she won when they fought and he lost his hand and then, and then they fell for each other sometime after that. She has him in her bed and in her heart. What are some _words_ when they have each other?

(But she would marry him in an instant, if he asked.)

“What are you thinking of?”

“Nothing.” She turns her head to look at him. He’s stripped down bare, the covers shoved away because it’s _too warm_. He isn’t a golden lion anymore, but he is still beautiful. She runs her hand over the greying hair on his chest, down to the trail of hair on his belly, and downward more, to the patch of grey around his favorite parts of himself.

“Want something, wench?” He pressed his hips forward, rubbing himself on her. Not that anything could happen — a quarter of an hour passed is too soon for him to perform again.

_(That surprised her the first time — after he finished she had her hand on him again and he yelped and said, “Treat it nicely.”_

_“I thought...,” she began, and she thought:_ maybe he didn’t like it with me.

_“Stop your worries,” he said and he kissed her. “If I was younger...much younger, it would only take a few minutes, but I’m old and drunk and...” He flushed. “I very much want to fuck you again, Brienne of Tarth.”_

_Just him saying it — her name and_ fuck _in the same sentence — felt like him inside her. She didn’t know if she would ever get used to that. That Jaime Lannister wants to fuck her. That Jaime Lannister wants to kiss her. That he was jealous—)_

“Do you want to go home?” she asks. “To Casterly Rock?”

He frowns. She immediately regrets asking.

“It hasn’t been my home since I was fifteen,” he says. “I left and gave up my birthright to it. It has nothing but ghosts, now.”

She hears him say: _I couldn’t be there without her._

“I would like to see the western sea,” she says. “I’ve heard it’s different than the eastern one.”

“It is. The eastern sea is warm and so so blue. Like your eyes.”

“Jaime.” She means to scold him but he just laughs and pulls the blankets over them both and snuggles close to her.

“When I came back missing a hand, my father thought it was a blessing from the gods,” he says. “He said I would no longer be useful on the Kingsguard, so I was to resign, marry, go back to Casterly Rock, and start producing heirs as quickly as possible.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I refused. So my lordly father disinherited me.” He smiles, that lopsided grin that makes her heart ache. “I should have married you instead of sending you off alone.”

Something in her chest twists. “I wasn’t alone. I had Podrick.”

Jaime scoffs. “He wasn’t as attentive as I would have been to my lady wife. We could have searched for the Stark girls together by day, fucked under the stars by night.”

“Stop,” she says, soft. It hurts — what could have.

“We could do it now,” he says. “Leave this city and leave the problems for others. We could be hedge knights. Travel sea to sea and back again.”

“Are you asking me?” She would, if he asked. She would go anywhere with him. She feels foolish for a man to make her so weak-willed, but she supposes that’s what love does. It makes you stupid.

“You tell me when, my lady,” and when Jaime kisses her, it feels like an apology.

.

Her moonblood comes when it should.

“Not tonight,” she says when he reaches for her. He looks hurt so she explains, “It’s my woman’s time.”

“So?” Jaime slides his hand up her shift. “I’m not afraid of a bit of blood, and there are other things we could do.”

“No,” she says, and he slinks back to his side of the bed. She feels badly — so she turns on her side and looks at him. “It’s just that I’m surprised.” They haven’t been that careful, and while she drank moon-tea occasionally in Winterfell, there was none to be found in Kings Landing, nor did she care make an effort to find any. “I knew I wasn’t fit to be a proper woman.”

“Are you — are you angry?” Jaime sits up on his elbow. “Do you _want_ me to put a child in you?”

“I...” She feels hot all over, and she’s unsure if it’s because she’s mad at him or because she’s ashamed that maybe she wouldn’t hate it, if it happened — stupid Jaime Lannister making her trust him. “I’ve laid with you...a lot, and yet with every turn of the moon my body bleeds. It isn’t meant to be.”

Jaime sighs and lays back down next to her.

“It doesn’t work like that,” he says. “We haven’t been together that long. It takes time. When we—” He stops for a moment, hesitant. “When we were trying for a second child, it took seven moons before Myrcella was made.”

He tenses, like he’s expecting her to be disgusted that he impregnated his sister. She probably should be. She isn’t.

“I’m wrong, Jaime. I’m not — I’m not built for that.”

“You’re bleeding, aren’t you? Doesn’t that mean you’re able?”

She turns over, facing away from him. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to.” She shouldn’t have said anything — she’s stupid to let herself think of the possibility. That isn’t the life she chose and she’s stupid to think that Jaime would want children with her—

Jaime is quiet — too quiet — and then he moves closer to her and wraps his arm around her middle. Just as she falls asleep she thinks he says, “one day,” but it’s almost like a dream, so she doesn’t dare ruin it.

.

Jaime keeps going to the council meetings. Brienne is glad — it gives him something to do besides moping in bed all day, and because he knows of the madness that she’s been enduring for weeks.

Today’s meeting was no different. Sansa argued to have an independent North, but then Greyjoy argued for the sovereignty of the Iron Islands that was promised by Daenerys, and then Dorne wanted to continue to be independent, and after that every other region was entertaining the idea of ruling their lands on their own.

She needs a drink.

Jaime drags her into town, to one of the areas that wasn’t engulfed in dragon fire. Tyrion and Bronn go with them, which she isn’t happy with but allows. She thinks of it as a joke — a one-handed knight, a dwarf, a sell-sword, and a lady knight walk into a pub...

It isn’t that bad, turns out. They’re all aggravated with the proceedings and they complain freely and Brienne gets pleasantly buzzed. She’s careful about drink in case Tyrion has another drinking game, but he doesn’t bother her, and neither does Bronn. In fact, she would say she’s having a _good_ time.

But then someone recognizes them — they are an odd bunch — and of course, she’s the target of the harassment.

“You are as beastly as the song says.” The man — a commoner — leans on their table and looks at Brienne. Too close. “You are very tall.”

“Really? I always get her confused with this one here,” Bronn says, gesturing to Tyrion, who is laughing into his cup. “Never noticed they were a different height.”

The man furrows his brows. “Did the Kingslayer really knight you? The song says—”

“Yes,” Jaime says, curt. He waves his golden hand at him dismissively. “Now leave us be.”

The man will not be so easily deterred. Brienne can feel his gaze on her, slimy and lecherous. She looks ahead, hoping he’ll lose interest.

“I would be better than him,” the man says. “I have only brothers so I haven’t fucked my sister.”

“Fucked your brothers though?” Bronn asks. “Actually, it looks like you’d take it up the ass—”

“Shut up, I’m talking to the woman,” the man says and Brienne almost laughs. _The woman._ How is it that people only address her womanhood when they want to use it against her?

The man hums a tune. That horrible song. She glances to Jaime and he nods and he stands up with her, but the man gets in her way.

“I’ve got a nice sword if you want to take another,” he says, but it isn’t until he puts his hand on her that she’s had enough — she shoves him and he stumbles and falls on the ground.

The rest happens very quickly. The man’s friends appear out of nowhere and they don’t hesitate at all to attack her — she kicks one but another gets a good smack to her face, and then Jaime is beside her and hits the guy across the face with his false hand. That’s when the fight really starts; other patrons get involved who don’t even know what the fight was about and Bronn and Tyrion get into it, too.

Brienne would be lying if she said it isn’t a little bit enjoyable.

.

She does regret it, however, when they have to explain to Sansa and Jon what happened.

The four of them — herself, Jaime, Tyrion, Bronn — stand in a line in front of the Starks. It would be impossible to conceal what happened. They’re bruised and bloodied, and though the fight sobered them, they smell like drink.

“This behavior is inexcusable,” Jon says. “Three of you are knights, and the other was Hand.”

“My lord,” Tyrion begins, “a man started trouble and we—”

“It does not matter. All of you are better than a drunken brawl.” Jon looks to Sansa for support. She merely shrugs. He sighs and turns back to them. “I don’t want to hear about anything like this again. We are trying to fix problems, not create more.”

They are dismissed, Brienne supposes, and she goes to walk out with the rest but Sansa stops her.

Alone, Sansa says, “I expect it from the others but not from you. There must have been a good reason.”

“There was a man,” Brienne says, and Sansa puts up her hand for her to explain no more.

“Did you win?” Sansa asks.

“Yes, my lady.”

“Excellent.”

.

By the time Brienne gets to her room, Jaime has stripped down to his smallclothes and is washing off with a rag.

“Everything all right?” he asks. He winces when he rubs at his forehead. “Did the lady wolf discipline you?”

Brienne crosses the room and takes the rag from him, wets it in the basin and wrings it out. She touches under his chin and tilts his head so he looks up at her.

“Everything is fine,” she says. And if it isn’t, it will be.

They clean each other’s wounds between tender kisses and then they go to bed together. He puts head between her thighs and his mouth on her and licks her until she comes and then he crawls on top of her and pushes inside her while she’s still shuddering and everything is _fine_.

.

“I’ll see you later,” she says, fighting a laugh — Jaime’s beard tickles at her neck where he’s insistently kissing her. “I’ll join you and Pod after I’ve met with Lady Sansa.”

“You lie. You’ll be gone all day.” He tugs at the waistband of her pants — he thinks he’s being clever and she doesn’t notice his fingers trying to work their way inside.

“I’ll come later. I promise.”

“I plan for both of us to _come_ later.”

“Jaime.”

He convinces her to have breakfast with him. She holds his hand as they go into the dining hall, and they’re chatting about something and she’s happy—

“Brienne,” says a voice she almost forgot, and Jaime drops her hand.

“Father,” she says, and he’s there, sitting at a table, wearing traveling clothes.

He looks the same — a little heavier and his hair thinner — but still himself. She knows she’s changed and she sees him looking at her. She is very aware of the black eye she got from the bar fight and Jaime’s love bites on her neck.

He stands and walks to her — it’s nice that there’s someone else taller than her, someone who looks like her.

“My dear girl,” he says and she falls into his embrace, and for a moment she forgets everything — the wars and death and loss — and all she knows is _home._

When they part she wipes at her face. Her father pretends not to notice. Instead, he turns to Jaime, who had slunk back, away.

“You must be Jaime Lannister,” her father says. He extends his hand — his left — for Jaime to shake. “My daughter has told me so much about you.”

Brienne has seen Jaime take on a bear without a weapon, stand trial in front of the dragon queen, fight the living dead — but she’s never seen him look more frightened than when confronted by her father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are about to get more awkward for Jaime.


	8. Jaime IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Jaime’s misfortune that he comes out of Brienne’s room at the same time her father walks by.

Brienne spends the morning with her father. She tells Jaime that she will see him later, parting with a formal nod — remaining chaste in the presence of her father — but even that makes her cheeks flame red.

“You know they’re talking about you,” Tyrion says. He found Jaime moping and suggested that he deal with it with the only remedy he knows: drinking.

Jaime tempers himself. He isn’t yet halfway through his first cup. He needs to keep his wits about himself.

“What do you think they’re saying?” Tyrion puts on a high falsetto voice. “Father, I _love_ the Kingslayer—”

“Brienne does not talk  like that.” Jaime grips his cup tighter. “And I’m sure there are more important things to discuss other than me.”

“Hmm.”

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re going to.” Jaime knows that look of his brother’s.

“I wonder if Lord Tarth knows his daughter sheaths your sword,” Tyrion says, all too amused. “Not that anyone has to tell him. One just has to look at the two of you together and know you fuck like animals in heat.”

“You only think that because you’re obsessed with sex,” says Jaime.

“But I’m not wrong,” says Tyrion. “I feel like I’m invasive at times when I’m with both of you. Like you’d push me aside so you can fuck against the table.”

“I’ll push you down right now.”

But that’s what Jaime thinks about that evening when he has a private dinner with Brienne and her father. He tries not to have tension with  her. Act like they don’t have hot passionate sex.  _No, I have never touched her._ They have propriety.

He doesn’t know how to do this. He never had to worry about meeting the father of the other woman he’s been with because her father had been his own. 

He shouldn’t be thinking of that either. He isn’t only the sister-fucking Kingslayer. He’s Jaime Lannister. A knight of the seven kingdoms. Bellringer. Loves Brienne.

He looks next to him, to her. She dressed nicely, in trousers and a shirt that appear new. She looks exhausted, even though all she did today was talk with her father. Jaime hasn’t had a chance to speak with her, other than when she dragged him away from Tyrion and she told him,  We’re going to dine with my father, please don’t do anything stupid.

He just has to get through this meal without saying the wrong thing, or embarrassing himself and spilling his drink. He wore his gold hand for the occasion. It makes him clumsy, and he forgot how much it hurts, rubbing against the sensitive scar tissue. He hasn’t worn it since the burning of the city. Since he almost died. Since Brienne saved him. Since Cersei died.

He looks at his plate. His meat isn’t cut up small enough. He avoids it and eats his potatoes instead. Brienne notices and wordlessly she cuts it for him.

Selwyn won’t stop  looking at him. Judgment? Pity? He has that same harsh blue gaze like Brienne sometimes has that feels like he’s been pulled into the undertow.

They stare at each other over the _clinks_ of  fork and knife as Brienne cuts his food into bite-sized pieces.

“Your daughter is kind,” Jaime says. “She won’t let me starve.”

Selwyn inclines his head at him. His jawline is sharp. It must be a Tarth trait. As is massive height, shocking blonde hair, and freckles.

“Brienne told me how you lost your hand,” he says. “That you—”

“Here.” Brienne pushes the plate back in front of Jaime. She’s blushing. She must feel as awkward as he does.

“How was your journey here?” Jaime asks, changing the subject. “Was the sea kind to you?”

“She was kind to me.” Selwyn waves his hand,  dismissively. “But the winter wind might be difficult if you don’t know how to harness it.”

Jaime thinks of telling him,  _Brienne is good at sailing, too. I had the lovely experience of being in a tiny boat with her while I was in chains._

“I’ve never been fortunate enough to visit Tarth, but I saw it as I traveled to Dorne,” Jaime says. “It was as beautiful as I’ve heard.”

“It isn’t like your fancy castle or like Kings Landing — well, was,” Selwyn says. “But it’s home.”

Jaime stabs at his food. He doesn’t have a home, anymore. Casterly Rock is nothing to him, and Kings Landing felt more like a prison than a home.

“Do you intend to make Tarth your home?” Selwyn asks, and Jaime chokes on his drink. 

“Father!” Brienne looks between them. “That’s—” She sputters. “Stop.”

Jaime almost says _yes_ because  all she has to do was ask him. He would go anywhere for her. With her. But Brienne is flushed pink and...angry? So he quiets.

“Have I misunderstood?” Selwyn asks. “Aren’t you...involved?”

An interesting choice of words. What _has_ noble  Brienne told her father?

“That’s nobody’s concern but ours,” Brienne says. If she was going for discreet, that wasn’t it.

“Ah. I see.” Selwyn regards Jaime. “Tell me, ser. Have you beat her in a fight?”

“A few times,” Jaime says.

Selwyn raises his brow at Brienne. She scoffs. “Those aren’t true fights. That’s just messing around. Sparring. And I usually let you win.”

“You do not.”

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself, Lannister,” she says, and she’s smiling and brilliant and he wants to kiss her right then.

Her father stares at them like he expects it.

 

.

 

Jaime manages to get through the dinner without dropping food on himself or kissing Brienne. He should be congratulated, really. Selwyn thanks him for the conversation and goes to leave, with Brienne following after him.

Jaime goes to Brienne’s room. It’s presumptuous but he worries that she would get the wrong idea if he isn’t there. And he hates that small room high up in the Keep where he healed. It reminds him of death.

She seems surprised to see him when she finally joins him, an hour later. That flicker is only there for a moment. She takes off her jacket as she strides across the room, lays it over a chair where Jaime put his.

She runs her hand through her short hair, sighs. “I’m sorry about my father.”

“No need to apologize,” Jaime says. “He’s delightful compared to my late father. Although, I believe our fathers would have gotten along. Both determined to marry their heirs off.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” goes Brienne. She undresses — Jaime had a head-start and is down to only his tunic, but she catches up fast. Kicks off her boots and socks, steps out of her trousers along with her smallclothes, pulls her shirt over head and then she’s bare.

With him sitting on the bed, his face is level with her stomach. He loops his arms around her waist and pulls her close.

“Oh,” she gasps, and he realizes — cold touch.

“Sorry.” His arms fall. She catches his right wrist. Starts to undo the straps of his hand.

He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something else. “I don’t think your father likes me much.”

“Odd. He said the same thing about you.” 

Jaime doesn’t ask want he wants — _What else did your father say about me?_ and _Do you want me to go home with you?_ and _Are you ashamed of me?_ and _Would you not marry me?_

“I shouldn’t have worn it,” he says. “It’s silly.”

“So? It doesn’t mean it’s bad.” She frees him of the hand and sets it on the table next to the bed. “It helped me find you.”

“I thought Podrick was the one who spotted me.” The boy saw a reflection of gold, and told Brienne. He supposes he’s lucky Pod didn’t leave him there to die.

_Darkness. Cersei was there. He whispered to her but she didn’t answer. His head was on her chest. He didn’t hear her heartbeat. He thought that had to be the first thing he ever heard. Her heartbeat in the womb they shared. He felt his own painful reminder that he was alive. He didn’t understand. If she was dead why wasn’t he? They were supposed to die together—_

_—and then there was light, and he was pulled away from death with strong but gentle hands. Salvation._

“Still,” Brienne says, and she lifts the hem of his shirt and takes it off, tosses it on the floor. Takes his right arm and kisses the end of it. “If makes you comfortable to wear it, it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t make a difference to me. I don’t forget that it isn’t there,” he says. “It’s for other people.”

_For Cersei_ ,  goes unsaid and on her face he sees that she knows who he means. But it wasn’t just Cersei. He sees how people’s gaze flits away from his arm. When he wears the gold hand, it keeps the pretense that something isn’t missing.

But it doesn’t bother Brienne. Maybe because she was there. When it happened. They dragged him away from her and the knife came down and when he screamed, _she_ screamed ,  _What are you doing to him, don’t hurt him—_ and there was blood, so much blood, and they tied him back to the tree and she _saw_ and  she yelled and swore and fought against the ropes so hard he thought she’d tear the tree from the ground.

“Fuck what other people think,” Brienne says. That must be how she’s lived her life. Survived. What she says to herself when someone says she’s ugly or too tall or can’t. Fuck it.

( _Fuck loyalty._ )

He doesn’t have her courage.

She brings his right arm down between her legs, straddles it. Rubs herself on it. She’s wet. A whimper gets caught in his throat. She smiles, leans forward to kiss him. They tumble backward onto the bed, laughing and breathing hard.

“Your father is staying down the hall,” Jaime says. “He might hear us.”

She bites at the place where his neck and shoulder meet. “We’ll say we were sparring.”

“In the bedroom? Feisty wench.”

She assaults him with kisses and her fingers claw at his skin, and it might as well be a fight for how rough it is. So that’s how she wants it — he can play that, too. He pushes back and shoves her face down and the sound she makes is anything but pain. It goes straight to his cock and it throbs, urgent. She rests on her elbows and knees, her backside presented to him. He spreads her folds with his fingers and licks her cunt. She let out a low guttural sound, says,  _ please, Jaime . _

“As my lady commands.”

He takes her from behind. He thrusts into her all at once and she lets out a sound so filthy he knows he will remember it for the rest of his life. He holds onto her hip, digs his fingers into her skin as he forces himself to go slow. Drags his cock out and pushes back in so he can see himself slide into that tight wet heat. And again. She looks over her shoulder, asks, “Are you going to fuck me or what?” He gives her what she wants, fucks her quick and hard and unforgiving. She muffles her shouts into a pillow and her back arches and she comes, clenching and grinding on his cock. He wants this to last — why would he ever want to die when he has this? — but his release comes crashing down on him like a lightning bolt and he doesn’t remember much between it and Brienne holding him and brushing his hair away from his sweaty forehead and saying, “You’re all right, you’re all right.”

 

.

 

It’s his misfortune that he comes out of Brienne’s room at the same time her father walks by. 

He hopes lord Selwyn is unaware that it’s her room, but he must know because he has a mischievous smirk that makes Jaime feel very seen. 

“Good morning, ser Jaime.” He stops and gives a small bow of his head that Jaime returns. “I was hoping to see my daughter.”

“She is with lady Stark,” Jaime says. She woke him early with a kiss and told him she would see him later at the council meeting.

“I will settle for your company, then.” Selwyn gestures ahead. “Would you show me the way around the Keep? It’s changed since I’ve seen it last.”

And that’s how Jaime ends up spending the morning with Brienne’s father. Jaime has to look up to speak to him; he’s as tall as a Clegane and Jaime has walk fast to keep up with his pace. At first Selwyn asks questions about the city and its reconstruction, but then the topic goes to what has been named Battle of the Mad Queens. Jaime hasn’t thought of it much because it all makes him ill. The bells ringing so loud his ears hurt. The beat of dragon wings. Fire. People burned alive. Death. His worst nightmare come alive.

_Burn them all._

“Brienne told me you tried to stop it,” Selwyn says. “That you surrendered the city and went to...your sister.”

“Yes.” One of the most annoying traits of Brienne is she keeps boasting about his good deeds .

Selwyn makes a thoughtful sound, and turns away from him to look at towards Blackwater Bay. They’ve come upon a balcony and they are alone. Jaime is mildly aware that the Evanstar could toss him over and nobody would know.

“Is it true what everyone says about you and your sister?” Selwyn asks. 

Ah.

“That I was the prettier one? Yes, it’s true.”

Selwyn stares at him blankly. He isn’t amused. Again, Jaime is reminded of the younger Tarth. Brienne was receptive when he told her the truth, so maybe her father would, too.

“There are often truth to rumors,” Jaime says. “Yes, I laid with my sister. We had since we were young. I liked it. I sired her children. I hurt people who were a threat to us. I did what was necessary to protect them. My family. I don’t regret it. But I’m not my sister—”

_“You’re not like your sister. You’re not. You don’t need to die with her,” was Brienne’s voice. His anchor. “Stay here. Stay with me.”_

“I’ve aim to live honorably, even if nobody understands it. As long as I believe it’s right. I don’t care what people think about me.” He pauses. “And I don’t regret killing the king either, if you were wondering. When he bled out at my feet, I was relieved.”

He might as well confess all his sins.

He expects Selwyn to spit at him, call him  Kingslayer , but instead he laughs and thumps him on the back so hard he nearly knocks the air out of him, and then asks if he wants a drink. Jaime is kind of afraid to say no. 

 

.

 

“Have you been drinking?”

Brienne is too loud.

“Your father made me,” he says, and she swears  _fucking shit fuck._

“It was fun. After we had a chat about my family we talked a lot about you. Did you _really_ have  a pet rock—?”

She grabs his arm and directs him towards the council chamber. He wiggles out of her grasp. She doesn’t need to lead him. He isn’t drunk. Just in that comfortable place of not giving a fuck.

The meeting is dull, like all others. He spends a good portion of it staring out the window at clouds. 

“What about someone with a birthright?”

They’re discussing the aristocracy. Again. 

“There’s nobody with a birthright,” says Jon Snow in that same gruff tone he has when he’s frustrated. He’s frustrated often.

Tyrion gives Snow a pointed look. As does half the other people at the table.

“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” says Snow. “Just ‘cause someone had a birthright doesn’t mean they are fit to rule.”

“There is no such thing as a birthright.”

All pivot to Jaime. The man who disregarded the sanctity of the crown; who killed a king, who had his bastards on the throne, who helped put his sisterlover there.

“Land doesn’t _belong_ to  anybody,” he says. Boredom had mostly sobered him, but maybe the wine was still in his blood. Or maybe he was just tired of listening to them. “There are wars. The ones who survive conquer and claim it as theirs. Until the next person takes it from them. And so it goes.”

“Then who do you suggest?” asks Tyrion.

“I don’t care,” Jaime says, “as long as they aren’t a Targaryen.”

 

.

 

He goes to the throne room.

He thinks someone would stop him, but there is no need to guard the room. It’s just a room, and the throne was just a chair.

Well. The throne was now nothing, melted down.

Good riddance. It was horribly ugly and overly pompous, and uncomfortable at that. 

He’s alone. He hasn’t been alone in the throne room since he was seventeen and Aerys’ blood was fresh on his sword.

It feels too big. Even more so with one of the walls missing. He thinks of the whole place crumbling and collapsing on him. 

Footsteps echo behind him and his heart leaps into his throat. He instinctively puts his hand to where his sword would be, but he doesn’t have one.

He turns. It is only Jon Snow.

“Ser Brienne said you were in here,” Snow says. He bundles his cloak around him tighter as he comes along beside him.

Jaime doesn’t know why the bastard sought him out. They haven’t exchanged more than a hundred words privately. Perhaps he’s looking for advice for coping with regicide. 

“Right here is where it happened,” Jaime says, to the ground they stand. “Where I killed the Mad King. Where did you kill your Dragon Queen?”

Jon’s jaw clenches. 

Jaime continues. “Your father found me on the throne, after. He thought I meant to claim the title for myself.” He laughs. “I would rather die than be king.”

Jon looks miserable. “They all want me to be king.”

“I told you I don’t care. You’re better than most options.”

Jon frowns. Jaime is reminded of Ned Stark. He thinks that the Northman could be nothing of his mother at all. That he sprang from Ned Stark, whole.

“You knew Rhaegar,” Jon says. “What was he like?”

Jaime is so thrown by the question he answers it without thinking. “Strange.”

“How so?”

Jaime shrugged. “He was the better of the Targaryens, I suppose. He fought well but he preferred to read and play his music.”

“He was a musician?”

“He played the harp. It made all the ladies swoon for him. That, and he was unbearably handsome.” Even Cersei had been infatuated with him. “But he was an idiot. He was married to a lovely woman, and yet he gave that rose to Lyanna Stark. You know the rest.”

Jon furrows his brows. “You were there. When his family was murdered.”

Memories that had long been shut away comes to the surface. “I was the only Kingsguard left at the castle, so I spent a lot of time with them. I loved those kids. What was done to them...” He clears his throat. “I was alone. I couldn’t protect them when I was trying to save the city.”

He’s thought a lot about it over the years. If he were there instead of going to kill the king. He doubts he could have done anything. He could not have defended them against the Mountain. He would have been killed alongside them. And then the city would have burned.”

“You know why I killed Aerys, yes?”

Jon nods. Yes. Brienne told everyone his secret.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Jon says, low. “Killing her.”

“You’ll get over it,” says Jaime. “But — you’re an idiot.”

“Excuse me?”

“You say you stabbed Daenerys and then the dragon flew away with her dead body. Why didn’t you lie and say she hopped on her dragon and flew away?”

Jon’s mouth gapes and he has a blank expression in his eyes, like he never thought of that. 

“I had to tell the truth,” Jon says.

“Of course,” Jaime replies, and then more to himself: “Bloody Starks.”

“I’m not a Stark.”

“Sorry. Snow.” Jaime grins at him. “Your father did have one misdeed.”

Jon takes a deep breath, sighs. “My mother was Lyanna Stark.”

Jaime, who considers himself to be a man of composure, staggers. So he and Ned Stark had more in common than he thought. Maybe that’s why Ned hated him so much, because he flaunted his affair with his sister. But how  _dare_   Ned have said anything about him and Cersei when he—

“My real name is Aegon Targaryen,” says Jon Snow.

“ _What_?”

And then the bastard tells him a story how he isn’t a bastard at all.

_._

_Jaime knelt in the dirt in the middle of the battlefield. He ached and he was covered in dirt and blood but he had never been happier._

_He looked up. Ser Arthur was smiling at him. Proud. Jaime thought he was a little in love with him._

_“In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave,” said Arthur Dayne, placing his sword at Jaime’s shoulder. “In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent. Arise, Jaime Lannister, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”_

_And for the first time, Jaime felt like himself_. 

 

.

 

It was all for nothing. The wars, the deaths. Over love.

But Jaime figures he should understand he better than anyone.

He walks through the castle and ends  up at the training yard without realizing. He steadies his hand on the railing and looks over. Brienne is there, sparring with Pod and Arya. She’s taken off her armor, is sweaty and her shirt clings to her back. She is beautiful.

Would he start a war over her?

Why would even question it?

“May I join you?”

It’s Selwyn. He stands next to Jaime without waiting for assent. He smiles as he watches Brienne knock Pod on the ground. If he notices Jaime had been shaken, anxious, he doesn’t say anything.

“Could you beat her?” Selwyn asks.

Jaime shakes his head. “Not truly.”

Selwyn makes a _tut_ noise, then, “A shame. The reason I’ve asked is because she once told me she would only marry a man who could defeat her in combat.”

“Then I suppose I am not fit to be her husband.” Something tightens in Jaime’s chest.

“So, instead she’s your whore.”

That name.  Kingslayer’s whore.  Jaime turns to Selwyn, ready to fight — he doesn’t care if it is her father — but he’s smiling at him. Winding him up. Seeing how he’ll react.

“I’m sure she would reconsider her terms,” Selwyn says. “For you.”

Then, Brienne looks up and sees the two of them standing there. She winces, but then waves at them. 

“She deserves better—” Jaime starts.

“Oh, shut up.”

He does.

 

.

 

That night, Jaime tells Brienne: “Your father knows we’re fucking.”

She sighs. “I know.” They’re in bed together, having done just that. “Does that bother you?”

“No.” He doesn’t want to hide anymore. “He also told me that you would only marry someone who could overpower you in a fight.”

She scoffs. “I was very young when I said that.”

“Ah, so this old one-handed knight has a chance.”

“Perhaps. My only question would be — are you happy?”

“I think so.” He doesn’t think he’s ever known happiness, so it’s hard to know if he’s in it.

“What would you do if she was still alive?”

“I don’t know.” He hasn’t thought about it because he doesn’t have to. Cersei is dead. He is not.

He feels Brienne’s body tense. He shifts to look at her. Her eyes are glassy and she is staring at the door.

“Stay,” Jaime whispers.

“You didn’t stay when I asked you.” Her voice cracks.

“I know. But you’re better than me,” he says and he wraps his arms around her and buries his face against her shoulder. “Please stay.”

And she holds him close and she promises, “Always, for you.”

If he had only said the same to her.

 

.

 

_Brienne fell asleep almost immediately after. She turned away from Jaime and took too much of the furs. Blanket thief. Not used to sharing a bed._

_Jaime couldn’t sleep._

_He laid awake, looking at the ceiling._

_He had sex with Brienne of Tarth._

_Made love to ser Brienne of Tarth._

_He couldn’t stop smiling. He had a warm swell in his chest that felt like a flame or spun sugar and he wanted to wake her just so he could talk to her, he always wanted to be with her, he—_

_Oh. So that was what it felt like. He thought he knew, but—_

_He looked over at her._

_Yes. That was it._

_He returned his gaze to the ceiling, reconsidering everything else in his life. How it was different. Because of her. He could hate her for it. Proving him wrong. That he could have gone his whole life without being loved like that._

_Before sleep took him, he mumbled against her skin,_ I love you, too _._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I’m “pantsing” this fic so I had to figure out where it was going. 
> 
>  
> 
> So it goes - Vonnegut


	9. Brienne V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things change.

“What has he done this time?” asks Podrick.

Brienne extends her hand to help him up, which is only fair since she’s knocked him on the ground for the sixth time today while training. “Who?”

“Ser Jaime.” He grabs her hand and she pulls him to standing. He brushes off his clothes. “Every time you’re angry with him, you’re much heavier with your attacks.”

She huffs. She considers pushing him down again. “How do you know I’m angry with Jaime?”

“He’s the only one who makes you this angry.”

And that’s true — nobody makes her blood boil like Jaime Lannister. He knows exactly how to accomplish that, too. Even from the beginning. One day into their journey across the Riverlands and he had been delighted that he provoked her into anger ( _“I already have!”_ ), and then he eventually made her so mad she ready to drown him. She was used to men saying horrible things to her, but Jaime was something else. He knows her too well. 

She goes to put away her sword and shield and then leans against the wall and drinks water from her canteen. She wipes her mouth with her sleeve and Pod is still there. 

“So, what did he do?” he asks. Serious, like he is going to fight Jaime himself.

Pod has become too protective of her.

“I don’t know,” she admits. She hadn’t realized she was angry, but she is — it’s been a low simmer in her chest. It’s not so much because of him or what he’s done, but because of the whole situation. Because he had to leave her. Because he won’t forgive himself. Because of the hurt he suffered before she knew him.

“I don’t know how to help him,” she says. She’s tried. She saved him, helped his body heal, but every time she tries to bring him out of that darkness she loses her hold on him and he slips back into it.

“Does he want to be helped?”

_I am not a good man_ still  echos in her mind. She doesn’t think that she will ever forget it — the brutal sorrow, how he wouldn’t meet her eyes until she made him, like he was ashamed of himself, like he was the coward he thought himself to be. She is certain that he wants to live — death tried to take him but he fought it — but he still thinks that he isn’t good. That he should suffer.

And that breaks her heart. 

 

.

 

_She couldn’t take her father to her room to talk because it was evident Jaime lives there — his clothes were strewn everywhere as well as the few things he had acquired — so she takes him past it, further into the Keep. People pass and bowed their head at her, acknowledging, and then took a second look at her father next to her. She pushed him along so he wouldn’t talk to anyone, and into a room that was undamaged by dragon fire and not inhabited by another._

_She closed the door behind them and she turned to him. He wouldn’t stop looking at her. Smiling at her. She thought he might get emotional about it next._

_“Why are you here?”_

_“I came here to see you,” he said. “You look incredible.”_

_He looked at her in awe. Like she was someone other than herself._

_Brienne guffawed. “If anything, I look worse than you saw me last.” Her nose had been broken another time, she’s bulkier, littered with new scars, and her freckles were darker since she spent most of her time in daylight._

_“But it’s true,” Selwyn said. “You look confident. Happy.”_

_“I’m happy because you’re here. Because the wars are over.”_

_“And because of ser Jaime?”_

_Brienne didn’t want to talk about Jaime with her father because she didn’t have any answers. They just_ are _. But she felt her face blossom in blush and she knew her father knew everything._

_“You sent me a distressed letter, telling me you’re coming home, and then a day later I receive another saying you’re staying in the capitol.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Was it because of him?”_

_“It doesn’t matter,” she said, because it didn’t. She went to step around him but he stopped her, forced her to look at him._

_“Tell me about him, child,” Selwyn said, and she did. About how she and Jaime met and how he was a beautiful and a good fighter even when chained and she told him the horrors of when they were captured and how Jaime screamed when they cut off his hand and how she hated him then she didn’t, and her father listened when she told him how Jaime tried to hide when he cried but then he gave up and cried on her shoulder, and that for some reason he trusted her with his most valued secret — that he should be revered instead of hated. She told him that the Jaimeshe knows is a good man, and has honor. That he trusts her. That he listens to her, that he always comes back for her._

_“You love him,” said her father._

_She could not deny it. She doesn’t know a time when she didn’t._

_Her father didn’t say anything, which was more unnerving than if he did. His gaze dropped down. “Is that the sword?”_

_The sword. The one Jaime gave her. Oathkeeper._

_It rang a gentle hum when it was drawn from her belt. Light reflected off the steel as she presented it to her father. He held it delicately, like it was made of glass and not Valyrian steel. He ran his fingers over the markings engraved in the blade, on the pommel decorated with lions and rubies._

_He looked up to her. “What did he intend giving this to you?”_

_“You know,” she said. She wrote him about it — vaguely, in case the letter were intercepted. “For my quest to find the Stark children. A gift.”_

_He made a thoughtful noise. “A gift is a book. Maybe a horse. But he gave you a horse, armor, a squire, and a priceless sword.”_

_She didn’t tell him what Jaime said when she tried to return it —_ it’s yours, it will always be yours — 

_“He’s wealthy,” she said. “He could afford it.”_

_“Then he will be a beneficial son-in-law.”_

_“Father, please.”_

_“Is he already? You’re living with him as though you are. You can’t hide that from me, Brienne. But if you haven’t exchanged the words, it’s alright. I understand how it is during times of war. Should I be expecting a grandchild soon?”_

_“Father.”_

_He smiled at her and handed back Oathkeeper. She sheathed it, safe. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use it for a very long time._

_“It’s a fine sword for a fine knight,” he said, and then: “I haven’t had the chance to congratulate you. Although, you’ve always been a knight to me.”_

_And she threw her arms around her father and held him close like she did when she was a child, when she thought she would never be loved._

 

.

 

“You’re upset with me,” Jaime says.

Brienne turns her gaze from the ceiling to him. He’s on his side and looking at her, defenses down. Just Jaime. Brienne thinks of lying and saying she was fine but he knows her better than that.

“I’m not upset with you, but...” She trails off and he keeps looking at her so she must say something. “I don’t know how to feel about you and her.”

Jaime lets out a short  _ha_. “So you’ve finally decided you’re disgusted that you let a sisterfucker inside you?”

“Don’t be cruel. I’m not saying that.”

“Well, then — I’m sorry my best years were used up by someone else.”

“I’m not saying that, either,” Brienne says, and now she is kind of mad with him. He’s being difficult on purpose, driving her away — a parry to her strikes. Defensive.

“Then  what?”

“I’m angry,” she says, and it feels good to admit it, she never lets herself, “at _myself_ for being angry that you’re still healing.”

He scowls. “Oh, yes. Poor me. Nearly squished to death along with my evil cunt of a sister.”

“Jaime—”

“She always said her and I would die together. Stupid, I know. But I had no other purpose in my life. Everything I did was so I could be with her. It was all her idea.”

“I don’t want to fight.”

“We aren’t fighting. This is talking. Isn’t that what you wanted to do?” he asks, and doesn’t give her a chance to respond. “The sex was her idea. I didn’t say no because...I don’t know why. I was just a stupid kid. I don’t blame her. She didn’t know either. Don’t look at me like  _that_   — don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t, because I’ve realized I didn’t care. You asked me what I would do if Cersei were alive, and I don’t know what I would do, but I can tell you that I am  relieved . Isn’t that terrible? She’s dead and all I can think is  _thank the gods I didn’t die because of her._ ”

Brienne doesn’t think it’s terrible. Or that he’s terrible for thinking so. But she knows he knows that.

She goes to sit up, but he pulls her back down on top of him. He wraps a leg around her hip and smiles, wicked.

“I went to her because of obligation,” he says. “Old habit. I went to her even though it made me feel sick. Like I was walking into my grave. I knew I made the wrong choice. I wanted to be with you, with you protecting me.”

“Stop.” She struggles against him half-heartedly but he doesn’t let go.

“No, you’re going to listen to me,” he says. He waits until she stills, and he takes a deep breath, and speaks.

“All my life I was willing to die, but when I was in that blasted underground and the ceiling started to crumble, I realized I didn’t want to die. I thought I was going to, but then you were there and you carried me like I was the most important thing in the world. I lived, and Cersei didn’t, and I’ve had to come to terms with that. That I had to nearly die to realize that her and I weren’t the same at all — that we could exist without each other. But I already was living apart from her for a long time. I think since I lost my hand. It just took me a while to realize it.”

Brienne could have told him that — she’s always seen the true Jaime. A good man, with honor. But he had been told his whole life who he was, and he believed it. He had to realize it himself.

She leans in, kisses him gently.

“What are you doing?” he asks. He sounds surprised, like he had been expecting something else — an argument, or a slap in the face.

“Loving you,” she says, and she does.

 

.

 

And then: they have a king.

Brienne doesn’t know what changed Jon Snow’s mind but he says, “yes, all right,” like he was accepting his being supper late. Like there’s nothing he could do about it, so might as well live with it. 

Nevertheless, the council kneels and proclaims him King Jon, first of his name, et cetera. 

While their new king fumbles through a speech, Brienne casts a sideways glance to Jaime, who looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. She gives him a scolding look to _behave_ but he laughs and has to cover it with a cough.

After, she goes to leave with Jaime — she expects that Jon would want time with his family, but he jogs a little to catch up with her.

“Your grace,” Brienne says, and she bows her head. Jaime mutters something under his breath but he shows respect, too.

Jon waves his hand. “No — none of that now. Please.” He sighs and Brienne secretly wonders if he is already regretting his choice.

He says, “May I have a word, ser Brienne?”

And you can’t tell the newly crowned king no, can you? So Jaime politely bows to Jon again (who again lets out an oppositional groan) but gives Brienne an apprehensive glance before he leaves her alone with the king.

She didn’t know what to say to Jon Snow when he was just a northern lord, and she certainly doesn’t know what to say to him now. She starts to say something — anything, because it’s getting awkward — but he cuts her off.

“I wanted to ask if you’d be my Lord Commander,” Jon says. He corrects himself: “Lady Commander.”

All the breath leaves her at once. First she thinks: _no, it’s a joke,_ then: _I can’t._

“Why not?”

“It’s unconventional,” she says. Stammers. She’s sweating. Has summer come early? “I’m a woman—”

“So? You’re a knight. One of the best I’ve ever known. You’re honorable and just and brilliant. You saved my sister and kept her safe. I can’t think of anyone else better to protect me.”

Brienne thinks of it. Of that life. She never thought she would be a knight, much less commander of the Kingsguard. She thinks of how Jaime told her joining the guard was a mistake, that the white cloak is what ruined him. She doesn’t know if she wants that life, servitude to another.

And where would Jaime fit into this life?

As though he read her mind, Jon says, “I wouldn’t have my knights take the old vows. You would keep your lands and you could marry and have children. You could resign whenever you wanted.”

That changes things. She should say yes. She wants to say yes. However.

“Well?”

Her answer is easy. 

 

.

 

“What did his snowy grace want?” Jaime asks when she joins him, later.

She had taken a walk through city after talking with Jon to think of her decisions, her future. Their future.

And now she is back with Jaime. 

He holds his hand out to her. She takes it and he pulls her forward so she sits in his lap. She shrieks, _Jaime!_ but he wraps his arm around her and keeps her from falling. He’s warm and kind and bright, like a star guiding her home.

“It was nothing,” she says, and she kisses him on his waiting mouth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> real life conversation:
> 
> forpeaches: so what happens next?  
> me: idk
> 
> I mean I kinda do but also....


	10. Jaime V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime gets an opportunity. Also: he learns to communicate.

Jaime wouldn’t necessarily say things are better. The city is still in ruins and thousands are dead and the seemingly endless winter goes on and on.

But he walks with less of a limp, Arya hasn’t beat him up too terribly when they spar, Brienne isn’t angry with him, and it’s been a while since he’s dreamed about Cersei coming alive with cold blue eyes and putting her icy hand down his pants, so with all things considered, he’s fine.

Although, he almost wishes a falling rock bashed his head in. Despite having agreed upon a King, there still are council meetings. He doesn’t know how there are more things to to talk about, but there apparently are — how to announce the news to the people, the amount of independence each region will have, who will take over the great houses who have died out. Bronn gets Highgarden and arguably, the best outcome of everyone; Sansa Stark becomes Lady of the North in favor of Bran Stark; Samwell Tarly names a distant cousin to take over his family house.

When Jaime is offered the title of Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West, he steadfastly refuses.

“I don’t want to be involved with any of this,” he says, gesturing with his good hand. “Let it go to Tyrion.”

And Tyrion is all too happy to take what their father said he would never have.

Jon Snow is quiet for most of the discussion, only speaking when asked a direct question. Jaime catches the young king staring at him often. They haven’t spoken since Jon revealed his true parentage. Jaime realizes that few know of Jon’s Targaryen bloodline — the Starks for sure, Tyrion (who is a _shit_ that he knew and didn’t tell him), and he thinks Seaworth knows, too. He wonders if Jon’s royal sigil will be a direwolf, a dragon, or a snowflake.

But it seems as though he isn’t going to claim his Stark or Targaryen heritage. He was raised as a bastard and honestly, it’s better than where he came from.

_I don’t care,_ Jaime thinks, _as long as he leaves me alone_. Snow will be a better King than the last several. He doesn’t have the madness of a Targaryen, but just enough of that fire to take the edge of that Stark righteousness. And most importantly: he isn’t related to Jaime.

 

.

 

And then Jon Snow ruins that peace. 

Jaime should have known when Snow asked to meet with him alone. He thought maybe the King wanted to hear more about his true father, but he looks too nervous. He’s pacing in front of crackling fire, his cloak swishing behind him.

Jaime bows stiffly. “Your grace.”

“Sit.” It’s a sharp command, Jon nodding to a high-backed chair. Jaime does. Jon takes a cup off the mantel and gives it to him.

Jaime peers into it.

“It’s not poisoned,” says Jon, and he takes a cup of his own and drinks from it. Jaime, who thinks Jon is too honorable to kill someone by poison, drinks.

It’s mead, rich and hearty. He takes another drink and feels it settle in his stomach. 

“I won’t waste your time.” Jon sits across from him in a matching chair. “I am in need of a Hand.”

“I would give you one, but I don’t have any to spare.” Jaime lifts his right arm, waving his gold hand. “Although I’m sure you could get something similar crafted.”

“I’m not in the mood for your sass, Lannister.” Jon clenches his jaw. “I am ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, and I need someone beside me that will guide me on the right path.”

“Didn’t ser Davos advise you when you claimed King in the North?” Jaime asks. “My brother would be another excellent choice — I wouldn’t blame him for everything that went wrong with Daenerys.”

Jon flinches at her name. He recovers quickly, though.

“Ser Davos has taken the position of Master of Ships, and I intend to ask Lord Tyrion to be Master of Coin.”

Jon drinks from his cup, bottom up, until it’s empty. He sets the cup on the floor and leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees and face in his hands.

“If you feel the urge to vomit, please aim the trajectory away from me,” Jaime says.

His highness makes a miserable sound, mumbles, “I’m an idiot.”

“Don’t worry.” Jaime doesn’t know why he’s bothering to comfort the lad — to make sure he doesn’t quit the job, because then they would have to go through endless meetings again about who should reign. “Your choices are wise. Seaworth is loyal, and you know what they say about Lannisters and money. Whomever you pick to be Hand to the King will be the right choice. Except for your uncle. Cousin? Anyone but Edmure Tully.”

Jon looks up. “Fuck no.”

“Good. How about your sister?”

Jon smiles. “Which one?”

“Either.” Jaime finishes of his mead, sets his cup on the floor, too. “I’ve seen quite a few people sit on the throne. None of them were suited for it. But I believe you will be fine. It won’t be fun, but you’ll do some good, I think, and I think that’s what you want. Whomever you pick to be your closest advisor will be just as good as you.Take your time to think about it.”

“I know who I want as Hand to the King,” Jon says. “I want it to be you, ser Jaime.”

And Jaime laughs. He didn’t think the boy had a sense of humor — it must be the drink — but then Jon scowls and looks too serious and Jaime realizes, he means it.

“No,” says Jaime, unequivocally. He refused all the times Cersei suggested it, and he wouldn’t now. The position hasn’t bode well to his family. His father had been too good at the job which made Aerys hate him, and Tyrion ended up imprisoned after he was Hand. And then there was Jon Arryn, murdered, and Ned Stark without his head. Besides that, he’s too old and he doesn’t want that responsibility...

And there’s Brienne. 

Jaime clears his throat. “While I would love to hear everyone’s jokes about a one-handed man being Hand to the King, I must refuse.”

“I insist,” Jon says. “There are plenty others who I could ask but you’re the best choice.”

“Because I can smack people down with metal hand if they get too rude?” Jaime asks. “They could call it Justice of the King’s Hand.”

“Ser,” says Jon, terse, “if I’m being honest, I find you horribly irritating—”

“How flattering!”

“—but I believe your council is essential in the reconstruction of this government.” When Jaime laughs, Jon shakes his head and continues. “I mean it. I know you care about the well-being of the city, with what you’ve done to protect it. You aren’t afraid to tell me I’m doing something stupid. You _get_ people . Why would you refuse?”

Why doesn’t he _not_ want to? It’s an awful job. They say it’s the Hand who truly rules the realm, and Jaime doesn’t want that — he doesn’t want to be the cause when it all goes wrong.

“You dont want me,” Jaime says. “I’m too irritating and I don’t know anything about governing. All I know is battle and strategy.”

“Taking care of a nation is mostly the same.” Jon leans in closer, puts his hand on Jaime’s shoulder. “I need someone who would keep me in line. Tell me when I’m being an idiot.”

“Or kill you when you when the dragon comes out in you and go mad?” Jaime shrugs off Jon’s touch. “Thank you for the offer, but no. I don’t even know where I’m going after everything is settled.” He thought he would go back to Winterfell with Brienne while she stays on as Sansa’s sworn sword, or maybe they would go to Tarth...

“I thought you would be staying in the city anyway,” Jon says, “since ser Brienne will be.”

“What?”

“Because I asked her to be Lady Commander of my Kingsguard,” Jon says, and Jaime must look dumbfounded as he feels because Jon tilts his head at him and asks, “She did tell you, didn’t she?”

And ettiequte be damned, he leaves the room without being dismissed, much less acknowledgement of his presence. All he can think of is _no no NO_ and he rushes to Brienne’s room — their room — and flings open the door.

“You didn’t tell me!”

Brienne looks up from where she’s darning Jaime’s socks. “Tell you...what?”

What _else_ could  she be keeping from him?That she is a better dancer than a fighter? That he wasn’t the first man she kissed? That she isn’t a natural blonde? (No, she is — he’s well aquatinted with the blonde between her legs.) 

He stomps across the room to her. “How could you?”

His pulse is in his throat and his eyes burn and he is furious. Brienne, however, is nonplused and calmly sets aside his sock. He is aware she could stab him in the eye with the needle. 

“Again, you need to be more specific,” she says. She looks up at him with those big, blue eyes of hers. “Have you been drinking again? You’re talking nonsense.”

How could she not know what he means? 

“If you didn’t want to be with me you didn’t need to throw your life away.” That must be it — she’s making it so she couldn’t be with him. She’s honorable to a fault and would take her vows seriously. She would never let him inside her again, never marry him. He was too late. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Damn it, Brienne, don’t be innocent about it. I thought you weren’t that  foolish anymore but apparently not—”

She stands up so quickly it sends the chair clattering to the ground and she is tall, at her full height. She has only a mere inch on him but feels like half a foot.

“I don’t know what’s possessed you to think you can talk to me this way, Jaime Lannister,” she says, “but I don’t like it.”

“Well,” he says, standing nose to nose to her, “ _I_   don’t like it when you keep secrets from me.”

“I don’t like it when you’re paranoid,” she says. He thinks she’s shouting. He thinks he shouted first. “And I don’t like it when you don’t talk to me.”

“ _Really?_   I don’t like that I had to hear from Jon fucking Snow that you’re going to be the commander of his Kingsguard!”

He sees a flicker in her eyes and he knows it’s true. She can’t ever lie. It’s as plain as the nose on her face. Her gaze drops down — ashamed? — but then she looks up at him through her pale eyelashes.

And she sighs and brushes past him, sits on the bed.

“You don’t deny it?” he asks, quieter. 

“He asked me only yesterday,” she says. “I was thinking it over before I talked with you.”

“Thinking it over?”

She glares at him. “If you had just asked, you would know I haven’t given him my answer yet.”

By how she says it, he doesn’t know what she thinks of doing. 

“You can’t accept,” he tells her. He isn’t above begging.

“Why not?” Her response is short, clipped, like getting hit with the flat side of a broadsword. He thinks she might take the position now out of stubbornness.

“Because,” starts Jaime, “because I told you being Lord Commander was one of the worst decisions I’ve made. Because you’re too good to live your life for someone else. Because I would never taste you again because you’re so damn moral you’d never break your vows. Because I want to marry you and have twelve children.”

Brienne laughs. “No.”

“No?” The rejection aches in his chest; he didn’t know she could be so cruel. Maybe this is her punishment for when he left her. Have him fall stupidly in love and then let him feel that same pain.

“No,” she repeats. “Twelve? That’s way too many. How about five?”

Oh, he loves her.

“How about seven?” he counter offers, and he smiles and she does, too.

“We’ll see.” Brienne pats the place next to her. “Come here.”

He approaches slowly, but then she holds out her hand for him to take in his. He sits next to her, close, and she kisses his cheek.

They’re quiet for a moment. Jaime looks down where their hands are together. He compares them — hers has freckles and her nails are neater and her fingers are a bit longer whereas his palm is larger, but their hands are the same size. He realizes he’s more alike to her than anyone else. 

“So you aren’t going to accept?” he asks. 

She rubs her thumb against a callus on his hand. “I don’t know.”

“We were just talking of children, which are forbidden as a Kingsguard. It would be a bit more difficult for you to hide them than it would be for a man.”

He knows about hiding. 

She shakes her head. “The king said he wouldn’t hold us to the same vows. We could marry and keep our lands and have a family.” She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles. “I wouldn’t have ever considered it otherwise.”

“So — you want to do it.”

She frowns. “I don’t think anyone would take me seriously.”

“They will. And if not, challenge them to a duel and knock them on their ass.” He untangles his hand from hers and cups the side of her face so she looks at him. “The people would respect you. It’s impossible not to see your goodness. Finally there would be a Commander worthy of the title.”

“You didn’t have a fair chance—”

“This isn’t about me,” he says. “It doesn’t matter than you’re a Lady. Is that the only thing that’s keeping you from it?”

She shrugs. “It’s an incredible honor and I want to help, but I don’t want to neglect myself for duty.”

Jaime understands that — now that he has something to live for.

“Since we are discussing employment,” says Jaime, “it’s a good time to mention I was offered a job, too.”

“Court jester?”

“In a way — Hand to the King.”

Brienne reacts exactly how he didn’t want her to react. Something between thrilled and shocked. She gasps and clutches his arm.

“Jaime! That’s...”

“Dreadful,” he finishes for her. “I would be a terrible Hand. Honestly, I think Snow asked me only for the puns.”

“Jaime?”

“Yes?”

“Shut  up .”

Jaime is so surprised by her boldness, he does.

“I don’t want to hear how you don’t think you’d be good enough,” she says. “You don’t think you’re good enough at anything. Not good enough to be Hand, not good enough at fighting, good enough for me to love you. But you are. You’re brave and smart and  good . You make the right choice even it’s difficult. You’ll be fine.”

He believes it when she says it.

He thinks of it for a moment. He can’t fight anymore, he can’t protect the King, but by being his closest council, maybe he can do some good. Be as honorable as Brienne sees him.

“If we were to do this,” he says, “I want us to be able to walk away. I don’t want to be trapped.” He’s had that — trapped in the Kingsguard and trapped with hate and trapped in a life he wanted less and less. “I don’t us to die in this city.”

“Well,” Brienne says, and there’s a small smile on her mouth and brighting in her eyes, “fortunately Jon already promised we could leave when we were ready.”

She’s still smiling when he kisses her. 

 

.

 

_He woke up in pain. His hand was burning, fingers flexing and spasming, but when he looked down where it should have been, he remembered again._

_His hand was gone, and he was currently lying in the dirt._

_He made a pathetic noise. He couldn’t help it. It hurt so bad and all he could do was throw up and moan and cry out, but he didn’t ask for death or even Cersei—_

_“Brienne.”_

_Her name, not wench or any other jape or even Tarth. Her name, perfect salvation._

_She was beside him in an instant, her stupid face with those stupid beautiful eyes. She was too alert to have been sleeping. He wondered if she didn’t sleep because she feared what the men would do to her, or because she worried about him. Regardless, she was exhausted — she had circles under her eyes as dark as the bruises on her face, and she had been yawning all day._

_She quickly looked over her shoulder and then back to him. She touched his forehead and grimaced and made a tsk noise. Worry._

_She wasn’t so ugly in the firelight._

_It must have been the fever that possessed him to do it, but he touched her shoulder. She flinched under his hand, but then she relaxed._

_“Sleep, wench,” he said. “I’ll watch over you.” She looked apprehensive, so he added, “I won’t let anyone enter your...chamber. Myself included.”_

_“I don’t need your help,” she hissed, but Jaime shoved her down. She fell over, a testament to her exhaustion — if she could be pushed by a sick cripple, she didn’t stand a chance against anyone else._

_“Stop being so stubborn and sleep,” he said. “Nothing bad will happen. I promise.”_

_And it felt like victory when she laid next to him._

_“Goodnight, Kingslayer.”_

_“Goodnight, wench.”_

_She was asleep within a few minutes. Jaime watched the rise and fall of her chest, and the stars move across the sky._

.

 

“For five years,” Jaime says. “That’s all.”

He and Brienne stood before their King, giving their terms. For five years they will stay in the city as Commander and Hand to the King — they agreed upon that together. It felt so far off in the future, Jaime couldn’t imagine it.

“ _A lot can change in five years,” Brienne had said._

He can’t wait for it.

“I am thankful and accept any service you give,” says Jon Snow.

Jaime grabbed Brienne’s hand and squeezed it. He feels her blushing from where he stood.

“Also, we are getting married,” he announced. He still couldn’t believe that she wants to. He asked her three times, and each time she said, yes, until she threatened to change her mind if he didn’t stop annoying her.

“What a surprise,” Jon says, blankly.

He is going to be so much fun, Jaime decides.

The King dismisses then soon after. If he noticed their disheveled hair or that they were wearing the other’s shirt, he didn’t say anything of it.

 

.

 

“May I have this dance, my lady?” Jaime asks.

Brienne replies, “Do your best, ser,” and lunges forward, her sword meeting his.

His best is not even half as good as her. He will never be half as good as her. His knight, his love.

But she loves him (loves!!) and if she can love someone like him, then maybe—

He’s lost in his thoughts when she disarms him.

He stares at her for a moment — her pink faced from exertion and the chill in the air, breathing hard, and her eyes sparkling, thrilled.

If she asked him to _stay_ , he would. But she need not ask, because she knows.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that’s it! Just kidding, there’s going to be an epilogue. Just some moments I wanted to write in but didn’t. So there’s that. 
> 
> From the start I planned to have Jon as king and Jaime has Hand — from the ending that should have been! Other than that, mostly everything has been made up as I went (as an experiment!). I don’t know if I’m good to do that again snsjsksm
> 
>  
> 
> Also thank you to ro_nordmann for making coverart for the story! Check it out: https://i.imgur.com/S3xGT7R.jpg

**Author's Note:**

> I hope to post often-ish. 
> 
> tumblr: @acanofpeaches


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